An Ever Fixed Mark
by Elspeth1
Summary: Loki accidentally turns Tony into a woman. Steve is less than thrilled. Hijinks ensue. CapxIronMan
1. Chapter 1

_Title_: An Ever Fixed Mark

_Author_: seanchai and elspethdixon

_Rating_: PG-13

_Pairings_/Characters: Steve/Tony, Jan, Hank, Wanda, assorted other Avengers

_Universe_: 616

_Beta_: tavella

_Labels_: gender-swap

_Warnings_: This fic deals with pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage.

_A/N_: The Avengers line-up in the late 80s (post Armor Wars) was insane and totally inconsistent, and tended to involve random non-Avengers people like Sue Storm and Reed Richards, and to change literally from issue to issue. Therefore, we have imposed order on it by choosing an East Coast Avengers line-up of People We Like because going with exact canon would have given us something random like "Hercules, the Black Knight, Moondragon, and Sue Storm". We're also setting this now instead of in the 80s, in total defiance of all timeline logic. Because everyone gets one Timeline, What Timeline? fic, and we figured that if there was ever a place to play fast and loose with canon or outright ignore it, it was genderswap crackfic.

_Summary: _Loki accidentally turns Tony into a woman. Steve is less than thrilled. Hijinks ensue.

* * *

_**An Ever Fixed Mark**_

"I cannot apologize deeply enough, Iron Man. My kinsman has done thee a great wrong."

Hank looked up from his mass-spectrometer results with relief as Thor's voice echoed through the building; they were back.

He knew why the team left him behind, out of the action; he was the one who had insisted on it, in the face of Clint's earnest and well-meaning attempts to get him back into costume. Being Yellowjacket again would make it too easy to fall back into old, bad habits. In costume, in the field, he'd be a liability. Back in the lab, as support staff, he could be an asset.

None of that made waiting uselessly every time the others went out to fight something any less nerve-wracking.

"The spell was intended for myself," Thor went on, sounding more apologetic than Hank had ever heard him, and that included the time the Enchantress had brainwashed him into attacking them all. "I am deeply grieved to have-"

"For the love of--" Iron Man interrupted, just as Hank reached the front hall, the print out of his test results still absently clutched in one hand. "Will you stop apologizing, Thor? It's not your fault. You didn't mean for this to happen." His electronically-modified voice sounded odd, off in some subtle way that Hank couldn't pin down.

"Are you all right, Tony?" he asked. "Were you guys able to stop Loki?" Tony looked unhurt, his armor undamaged, but that didn't always mean anything.

Clint, Bobbi, Wanda, and Tigra looked unscathed, though Bobbi's costume was missing a sleeve, the trailing fabric torn away. Hank wasn't surprised; as long and full as her sleeves were, they were bound to get caught on things.

"Yeah," Clint said, his voice strained. "We stopped Loki." He looked and sounded as if he were trying not to laugh, and kept darting little glances at Tony.

"I'm fine," Tony said shortly. "Well, I'm not hurt, anyway."

"The blame lies on my head," Thor said, drowning out Tony's protests, "I taunted Loki with the memory of an incident wherein he was greatly shamed and mortified. Iron Man was the unfortunate victim of his retaliation."

"In the future, maybe we should avoid taunting supervillains," Tigra suggested, her tail swishing gently back and forth.

"That would take all the fun out of it,"

"Hawkeye wouldn't know what to do with himself if he couldn't pretend to engage in witty banter,"

Clint and Wanda spoke simultaneously, then Clint glared at her through his mask.

The team was standing in a loose huddle, everyone staring at Tony, who had turned away from them and wrapped his arms around himself. It was a very vulnerable, human gesture that should have looked odd in the armor, but Hank had seen him do it often enough before that any oddness had long since worn off.

"Are you sure you're all right?' he asked, taking a step closer to Tony. Tony had been on edge lately, unpredictable, and there was clearly something very wrong here no matter how fine he insisted he was.

"Off for God's sake." Bobbi rolled her eyes. "Just take the damn helmet off. We all know what happened; it's not like you're hiding anything."

Hank was about to point out that no, they did not in fact "all know what happened," when Tony reached up and, with obvious reluctance, pulled his helmet off.

"Oh my God, you're a girl," Hank blurted out.

Tony glared at him, his face thinner and visibly more delicate, narrowed eyes thickly fringed in black lashes -- which were no longer or thicker than they had been before, but seemed more striking now. "Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Hank," he said, in a husky mezzo-soprano that didn't sound remotely like his voice.

That was when Clint lost it and finally started laughing.

ooOOoo

"It's not just a superficial alteration," Hank was saying, for the third time. "It goes all the way down to your DNA. You don't have a Y chromosome anymore."

"I don't care how thorough it is," Tony snapped, glaring up at Hank. "I just want you to undo it." He was used to having to look up at Hank, but never when Hank was normal-sized. It was a new and not particularly pleasant experience.

"We know, Tony," Wanda sighed. "Trust me, we know." She gave Tony an apologetic little half-smile. He didn't smile back.

Wanda was eye to eye with him. It was disconcerting to be this small; he hadn't been this short since he was fifteen. And his balance was all wrong; he'd had to constantly watch himself to keep from falling over before he taken the armor off.

He was very carefully avoiding thinking about the body parts he was missing; he wasn't ready to deal with that yet. He was that never going to be ready to deal with that.

"I hate this," he muttered. "These stupid breasts move whenever I move." He nodded at Wanda's chest. "Yours are at least a cup size larger. How do you stand them?"

"I wear a bra," she said, dryly.

Tony shuddered. "I wore something across my chest for long enough as it is. Surely there's some spell you haven't tried."

There was, he reflected, a reason he hated magic.

Hank, at least, could explain why his various attempts to turn Tony back over the past twelve hours had failed, and every failure gave them more information on Tony's condition, and hopefully brought them closer to fixing it. Wanda, on the other hand, just frowned, stared at him, and performed a series of incomprehensible hand gestures, accompanied by muttered comments in English and Transian. Then nothing would happen, and she would do it again, with slightly different gestures and occasional flickers of pink light.

"I've tried everything I can think of," she said now. "Spells to dispel enchantments, hexes to disrupt other people's magic, even healing spells, though my powers don't exactly lend themselves to that. If I don't take a break soon, I'm going to start accidentally frying lab equipment. Or you."

Tony started to protest -- every hour not spent working on this was another hour that he spent trapped in this alien body, not to mention that Clint has given them forty-eight hours to fix this before he called Steve and the other Avengers on the East Coast, and had them bring Strange in on it -- but Wanda over-rode him.

"I've spent all last night and half this morning trying to undo the work of a god. I need to rest. And so do both of you."

"I've worked on things for longer," Hank volunteered.

"Hank," Tony pointed out, "when you work on things for days on end without taking breaks, they tend to gain sentience and try to kill you."

Hank flinched, and looked away, suddenly seeming to find the computer screen he was standing next to utterly fascinating, and Tony winced inwardly. Ultron was not something to joke about with Hank.

"Sorry," he said. "Thank you, both of you. I know you're trying."

"We'll start again in the morning," Wanda told him. "We will fix this. I promise."

Tony nodded, and did his best to squash the panicked little part of his mind that was already wondering what he was going to do if they couldn't. How was he going to explain this to the media? To Pepper and Happy and Rhodey? To his date tomorrow night?

He was going to have to call and cancel. As far as he knew, Rae was not into other women.

And all this because Thor couldn't resist the impulse to mock Loki over embarrassing incidents that had happened millennia ago.

He had though the blast Loki had aimed at Thor was an attack, some kind of sorcerous lightening bolt that the armor would harmlessly deflect. Instead, he had ended up like this, after throwing himself directly into the path of a petty Asgardian attempt at revenge.

Tony really, really hated magic.

"I'll see you in the morning." Wanda turned to go, then hesitated, adding, "Between myself and Bobbi, we should be able to put together a full set of clothes for you. I'll leave them outside the door to your room."

Tony nodded tiredly, then watched in silence as she left the lab. He didn't want to think about wearing women's clothing yet. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take the dress shirt and trousers he currently had on off; the body underneath wasn't his anymore. Admittedly, his body was on the battered side, even attractive as it was, but he'd rather have his own damaged heart and liver and shrapnel scars than some strange woman's body, even if it was genetically identical to his own save for a single chromosome.

"What about my heart?" he asked Hank. "And, well, everything else."

"The X-rays are developing." Hank tapped a few keys, then studied the computer screen again. "If you give me a few minutes, I should have the results of the second round of bloodwork, too. I'll be able to tell you more then."

Tony stared down at his hands for a moment, wishing there were some meaningful way he could contribute. Biology had never been his field. Machines were much easier to work with than living things -- more stable, more predictable. Biological systems existed in a state of constant flux.

His hands looked small now, delicate, with long, thin fingers that didn't look like they belonged to him. The tiny red burn he'd given himself last week welding a new faceplate onto his helmet was still there, though, halfway down the length of his left index finger.

The scars and calluses from years of metal working were still there, too. He didn't have to wait for Hank's most recent round of test results to confirm that all the wear and tear on his body was still there; if he still had the small scars, he would still have the big ones.

Curiosity finally overcame dread, and he unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and made himself look. The breasts were small, probably only A cups, but they were, undeniably, breasts. Nestled between them, in the center of his chest, was the same ragged mass of scar tissue he'd had for the past five years; if anything, the breasts made it stand out more. One of the longer shrapnel scars carved a thin, white line along the inside of his right breast, reaching halfway to his nipple.

"That's interesting." The words made him look up, and he discovered that Hank was now standing just a few feet away from him, staring intently at his exposed chest. "You can see that the scars and the breasts didn't originally belong together. If you'd had them when you were injured, this scar," his reached out and lightly tapped the long scar on Tony's right breast, "wouldn't be at the same angle. It would have cut into the side of your breast this way-" He traced his finger sideways, the touch feather-light, and Tony's skin tingled in a way that was both unfamiliar and strangely pleasant. His nipples tightened up in a way that he'd seen on any of a dozen former dates, the skin there suddenly oversensitive, like he had gained extra nerve endings.

"Huh," he said. "I never realized how much more sensitive women's breast are. Or, well, I knew, but I never really thought about what it would be like."

Hank snatched his hand back as if Tony's skin were covered in something caustic. "Oh God," he blurted out. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"No, it's all right," Tony interrupted. "I don't mind. Since I'm stuck with this body at least until morning, I might as well start figuring out how it works."

"I didn't think," Hank was stammering. "I just, um, maybe you can just button your shirt back up and we can forget this ever happened?"

"Or," Tony said, tilting his head to look up at Hank -- the through-the-lashes seductive look was much easier to pull off at this height, it seemed -- and taking a step closer to him, "you could do it again."

Hank made a small, strangled sound.

What Tony really, really wanted, if he were completely honest with himself, was a drink -- preferably a lot of drinks, so that he could forget for a few hours at least that his body had been taken from him and warped into someone else's -- but that would be an incredibly bad idea. If he ever started drinking again, he would never be able to stop; it let him relax, made everything that hurt go away -- or almost go away, enough that he knew that just one or two more drinks would be able to fix it -- and if he ever let himself have that again, he wouldn't be able to make himself stop, to give it up and go back to sobriety.

Alcohol, however, wasn't the only way to make things easier to handle for at least a little while. And Hank was still staring at his half-exposed breasts, albeit with a slightly wild-eyed expression, as if he truly wanted to look away, but couldn't.

Tony rose up onto the balls of his feet, grabbed Hank by the shoulders, and pulled him forward into a kiss.

Hank went stiff, making another little strangled sound in the back of his throat as Tony ran his tongue across Hank's lower lip, trying to coax him into opening his mouth.

Hank turned his face away, breaking the kiss. "Tony, stop that! I'm married!"

"Not anymore," Tony purred, and wrapped his arms around Hank's neck, the way Indres always had when she was trying to be seductive -- the memory of her was almost enough to completely kill the tingling in his chest and groin, and he quickly pressed another kiss to the side of Hank's jaw, feeling rough blond stubble scrape across his lips and erase the lingering ghosts of her touch.

"Hank!" Clint yelped from somewhere behind them, his voice actually cracking, "I thought you liked women!"

"I do!" Hank jerked his face away again, and began pulling Tony's arms loose from his neck. Tony let himself be manhandled into letting go, suddenly and acutely conscious that he'd been all but forcing himself onto a less-than-willing Hank. "Tony is a woman right now. But it wasn't-"

"He might have breasts, but he's still Tony." Clint sounded mildly horrified; Tony might have been offended if he hadn't known him so well. "I mean, not that it isn't about time you displayed interest in a human being who wasn't Jan, but _Tony? _There aren't enough words in the dictionary for how bad an idea that is."

Tony took a slow step back from Hank, who was holding himself rigid, as if expecting Tony to throw himself at him and tear his clothes off at any second. "It was my idea," Tony said. "I'm sorry, Hank, it was a stupid idea."

Hank nodded slowly. "You're my teammate," he said, voice stiff and hesitant. "And you're not- I'm still- I can't-" he gestured jerkily with both hands, clearly struggling for words. "You wouldn't want to do that with _me _anyway. I'd end up hurting you."

Tony shook his head. "You wouldn't have, but you're right. It would have been a bad idea. For all we know, having sex in this body could lock me into it permanently or something." He paused. "I've mentioned that I hate magic, right?"

"Repeatedly," Clint said, "and then you said that you, Hank, and Wanda were going to get to work undoing the magic, which was apparently code for 'I'm going to take my new girl body for a test drive.'" He frowned slightly, and then his eyes widened and he started to grin. "You didn't try the kissing thing on Wanda, did you?"

"No. I didn't think of it until after she'd left."

Clint made a face. "Don't sound so regretful. Also, can we change the subject? I really don't need sexual fantasies with you in them."

"You asked," Tony pointed out. He felt exposed and cold in his unbuttoned shirt, now that there were two people here to stare at him -- not that Hank was looking, anymore -- and began buttoning it up again. He didn't need to stand around looking like he'd just finished a night of debauchery and then decided to put on his male lover's clothing.

Clint ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. "Oh man, I am really not prepared to deal with this. Forget forty-eight hours; I'm calling Cap now."

"You said we had two days," Hank protested.

"No!" Tony blurted out, speaking over him. "Don't!" He knew even as the panic flooded him that it was completely irrational, but the idea of Steve seeing him this way was so utterly humiliating that he couldn't help it. "We're going to figure this out. We just need a little more time." Steve had been very clear that their friendship was over, the last time they'd met. He'd given back the shield Tony had made him, and walked away, shoulders stiff and angry. And he'd ignored every call Tony had made or email he'd sent since, which might have been Steve's dislike of email and voicemail, but was probably proof that Steve had meant exactly what he had said -- that Tony had lost his trust and respect, and he was done with him.

After that... he couldn't go crawling back to Steve, back to New York, the first time he needed help with something. Not after what he'd done. It had made sense at the time, been necessary, but he'd still... he'd knocked Steve unconscious and temporarily paralyzed him to keep him from stopping Tony from recovering his stolen tech. Steve wouldn't -- didn't -- care what the tech was going to be used for, or how dangerous Tony's designs were in the wrong hands. He just cared that Tony had broken the law to get it back, and hurt him in the process.

He deserved Steve's anger and contempt, but that didn't make the thought of facing it again less painful. If anything, it made it worse.

"I was going to give you time," Clint said, "but then I was scarred for life by the sight of you and Hank making out, so now your time is up. If I give you much more time, you'll probably do something _really _stupid, like run off and have sex with War Machine."

"I'd try that, but Rhodey's still mad at me, too." The words emerged almost without conscious intent, and Tony could see both Clint and Hank twitch. It was true, though -- he might otherwise have actually had a chance with Rhodey now that he was temporarily female, but not after forcing Rhodey to pick up his slack and clean up his messes for months until the stress practically drove him into a nervous breakdown, getting Morley and Clytemnestra killed, taking the Iron Man armor away from him, and otherwise treating him like dirt. The War Machine armor had made up for a lot, but hardly everything.

"What time is it in New York?" Clint asked Hank. "Nevermind, I don't care. I'm calling Cap _now."_

Tony groaned, and buried his face in his hands, digging his fingers into his hair. At least he'd been able to make some kind of gesture of apology, with Rhodey. Tony had been afraid Rhodey would throw the new armor back in his face, like Steve had the shield, but Rhodey had, thankfully, been willing to try and work things out again.

Steve, he was pretty sure, wasn't.

And now Tony was going to have to ask him for help.

ooOOoo

Stopping Doom from turning half of Lower Manhattan into a flood basin as part of some dark ritual sacrifice -- Steve still wasn't clear to whom, or what exactly Doom had intended to gain from it -- had taken the entire day. Namor had grudgingly lent a hand, mostly because the resultant underwater earthquake when half of Manhattan caved into a vast sinkhole would have caused secondary tremors as far away as Atlantis. But as much as Steve enjoyed working with Namor occasionally, his presence tended to be as much a hindrance as a help. All these years later, and he still hadn't grasped how to work with a team.

And now, it was now eight o'clock at night and no one had eaten dinner yet. And since it was Jarvis's day off, it was Steve and Jan's responsibility to make dinner.

"Let's just order pizza," Jan suggested. She was sitting at the kitchen table, regarding the array of cookbooks spread across it with disdain. She tapped a thin, hardcover volume with one finger. "This one is nothing but different manly things you can sear to death on a grill. Why do we still have John Walker's things?"

"He left that here the first time he went out to the West Coast. I doubt he even remembers that it exists. And we can't always order pizza when Jarvis isn't here. He'll think we don't know how to take care of ourselves."

"And he'd be right," Jan said, leaning her chin on one hand and looking up at Steve with a little smirk. "Which pizza place do you want me to call?"

Steve sighed. He really would have liked a home-cooked meal, but not enough to go through the effort of cooking it. Not when he still ached all over from getting tossed around by Doom's magically augmented laser blasts. "Call whichever one you want. I want pepperoni -- Sam will, too -- and Jen will want a meatless one with mushrooms and peppers. Actually, you'd better make that two with mushrooms and peppers."

"Be glad Thor's still on the West Coast, or it would be six with pepperoni," Jan said, reaching for the phone.

It rang just as she touched it, and she scooped it up quickly. "Avengers Mansion. Janet Van Dyne speaking." Her voice was surprisingly bright, considering the day they'd all had.

"Clint," she said after a moment. "Can you slow down, I can't--" a pause, presumably caused by him interrupting her. "I can't understand you." As Steve watched, Jan's eyebrows drew together in a frown. Then she sat bolt upright in her chair, her eyes going wide. "Wait, Tony and Hank _what? Why?" _She shook her head, waving one hand in a negative motion as if Clint could see her. "Okay, you know what, I'm giving the phone to Cap now."

She stood, holding the phone away from her ear and pulling a wry face. "Loki cast some kind of lust spell and made Tony and Hank have sex," she said flatly, thrusting the phone in Steve's general direction. "As this week's chairperson, I am officially making it your problem and not mine."

Tony and Hank had... okay, Steve could have lived the rest of his life quite happily never having known that, or experiencing the mental images the knowledge conjured up. The fact that the mental image of Tony and Hank entwined in one another's arms, naked and sweaty and writhing, was not actually unpleasant, just made it worse. Steve forced the thought away and took the phone gingerly, and Jan turned on her heel and left the kitchen as quickly as she could without seeming to flee.

"Oh, thanks!" Steve called after her. The he brought the phone to his ear. Clint was still speaking -- he had, Steve guessed, not stopped since Jan had picked the phone up, and probably didn't realize that she was no longer on the line. "Clint," Steve said loudly, cutting across the incomprehensible babble, "why are you bothering us with this? I thought we had all agreed that SOP for sex pollen, alien pheromones, and lust spells was to tell no one, never speak of it again, and pretend it didn't happen. Or, if necessary, get counseling."

It had been a very, very long day. Why couldn't Clint have picked a different night to have one of his periodic crises of confidence over his leadership abilities or perceived lack thereof? And why did the lust spell have to involve _Tony? _He'd been trying hard to avoid thinking of Tony since Tony's apparent complete lapse of sanity -- and that was if Steve was being charitable -- over his stolen technology. He'd especially tried to avoid thinking of Tony in this kind of context, because musing about Tony's lean, cleanly defined muscles and husky voice made staying angry with him more difficult than Steve wanted it to be.

"What sex pollen?" said Clint, loudly enough that Steve winced and pulled the phone an inch or so further away from his ear. "Are you even listening to me?"

"The sex pollen Loki used to make Hank and Tony... do whatever it is they did." To his embarrassment, Steve found himself unable to actually say it.

"They didn't make out because of Loki. They made out because they're both idiots."

Steve let out a breath, torn between relief that his former teammates hadn't actually had borderline consensual sex under the influence of magic and utter bafflement that they'd apparently engaged in completely consensual kissing. Or groping. Or however exactly Clint defined making out.

Very little that Tony got up to when it came to romance surprised him anymore, but with Hank? After Steve had torn him a new one over how stupid getting involved with an emotionally fragile teammate was during his brief fling with Jan, he'd decided to move on to _Hank? _Hank, who'd never shown an interest in men, or even an interest in any woman other than Jan? Hank, who was less than stable at the best of times these days?

"What exactly did Loki have to do with it, then?" he asked.

"You _aren't _listening," Clint said, with a kind of accusatory triumph. "Loki's the one who turned Tony into a girl."

"You have pictures, right?" Steve blurted out, before rationality kicked in and reminded him that deriving petty amusement from Tony's humiliation was not the mature or right thing to do. He couldn't help but wonder what a female Tony would look like. The same coloring, obviously, and the same angular bone structure -- 'she' would probably have cheekbones that could cut glass -- but would Tony be tall or short as a woman? Thin, or curvaceous? Tall, probably, he decided. Like Sharon or Rachel. And curvy, probably a classic hourglass figure like movie stars had had back before all the women in movies had gotten so thin. Tony was an extremely attractive man, and that was bound to translate over.

"Well, obviously," Clint was saying, "but now Wanda and Hank can't figure out how to change him back, and it's not funny anymore. And I had to watch him and Hank-"

"Yes, Clint," Steve cut him off quickly before he could mention Hank and Tony making out again. "I got that part already. Hasn't Wanda tried-"

"It's been almost a day and a half," Clint interrupted miserably. "We thought it would wear off, but it hasn't. And it turns out Wanda's chaos magic isn't exactly up to breaking spells cast by a god of chaos."

That sounded reasonable. Wanda was a powerful mutant, but Loki was a god, with millennia of experience at this kind of thing. And he was much more powerful than the Enchantress, whom Wanda had defeated several times in the past; her spells only worked within a fairly limited range.

"Tony is... all right, isn't he?" Steve asked, as it belatedly occurred to him that he hadn't even stopped to wonder about Tony's wellbeing in all this. Who knew what kind of effects a physical change that drastic could have on someone?

"He's fine, unless you count the part where he's a girl."

"That's good, I guess." Very good, actually. He might still be angry with Tony, and disappointed that his friend had turned out to be not quite the man Steve had thought he was, but he never wanted to repeat that horrible week the year before last, after Tony had disappeared for nearly a month and then turned up again in St. Vincent's hospital, half-dead of hypothermia, malnutrition, and a raging case of pneumonia.

Tony had been his closest friend, once. He still couldn't stand the idea of seeing him suffer. And having his body altered this drastically against his will... knowing Tony, he couldn't possibly be handling this well. The man who had angrily defended his illegal actions to Steve last month had been an entirely different person from the broken, borderline suicidal drunk Steve had narrowly saved from death in a burning hotel, or the unconscious, fever-stricken wreck he had visited in the hospital, but that had been just under two years ago, and who knew what it might take to make Tony start drinking again. Not everyone was able to stay on the wagon, after all.

And damnit, he'd thought he was over Tony.

"Is there anything we can do to help you guys out?" he heard himself asking. "I'm guessing you didn't call just to share gossip."

"Well, no. Do you think you could get Dr. Strange to come help us out?"

Steve began pacing back and forth from the massive black gas range to the table, still strewn with cookbooks. John Walker's book of manly grilling recipes had been relegated to the far corner of the table, along with a vegetarian cookbook that he was pretty sure belonged to Wonder Man -- Simon went through periodic health-nut phases that only ever lasted until the next time Beast showed up bearing grocery bags full of Twinkies and potato chips. "Strange doesn't like to leave the Village, unless it's to visit other dimensions. Maybe you'd better send Tony here. Wanda, too. She'll be able to give Strange a rundown on what happened." And, Loki or no, she was still the Avengers' expert on chaos magic.

And had he just effectively invited Tony to rejoin the East Coast team?

It was one thing running into Iron Man during an Avengers' priority alert every so often. Living under the same roof with Tony Stark again, however, would be another matter entirely.

"That would be great!" Clint said, in a relieved tone that implied that this had been exactly the result he'd been hoping for. "I'll go tell everyone. They can be on a quinjet by this afternoon. Or, well, seeing as it's nighttime there, they can be on a quinjet tomorrow morning!" and he hung up the phone, cutting off Steve's strangled,

"Clint!" as he tried to protest the utter lack of any time to plan, warn his teammates, or ask Strange if he was, in fact, willing to help. And he probably ought to give Vision a heads up before his rather uncomfortably ex wife arrived. "Some time to get ready would have been nice," he finished, to the hollow sound of the empty line.

Jan, he realized belatedly, still thought that Tony and her ex-husband had had non-consensual gay sex. That was going to be a fun conversation.

Tony was going to be here tomorrow. And that conversation was going to be anything but fun.

Steve hung up the phone in its cradle and sat down in the chair Jan had vacated, resting his head in his hands -- one of his elbows was on top of _The Joy of Snacks _-- and tried to figure out what he was going to do.

ooOOoo

The quinjet arrived at ten in the morning, which mean that it had to have left LA at five a.m. Which meant that Tony and Wanda had probably gotten up at four.

Wanda, at least, was an early riser, either by nature or from prolonged exposure to Steve, who was such an aggressively cheerful morning person that Jan preferred to avoid him before nine a.m. whenever possible. Four a.m. however, would have been early even for Steve. It was occasionally when Tony went to bed.

Either Tony had been desperate to get to New York as soon as possible, in order to spend as little time as possible as a woman, or Clint had been really, really desperate to get rid of them. Or both.

"Remember," She-Hulk called over the scream of jet noise, as the quinjet redirected its thrust and went into hover mode directly overhead, coming slowly down for a landing, "when Tony gets off the plane, whatever you do, don't laugh."

"Not even a little?" Jan asked. Any male teammate being transformed into a temporary girl would have been at least amusing, but in Tony's case, it was like some grand example of cosmic justice.

Considering the number of women he had dated, slept with, and then moved on from -- and Jan, moving in the same social circles, had heard stories long before she ever experienced his talents in bed for herself, some of them accompanied by satisfied smirks, and some full of justified outrage at being abandoned mid-date because of 'company emergencies' that Jan suspected had involved a pressing need to don armor and jet boots -- it could hardly have happened to a more deserving member of the Avengers.

Well, possibly U.S. Agent.

"Okay," She-Hulk conceded, "maybe a little."

Jan grasped her sweater tightly as the wash of air from the quinjet's landing tore at them, and wondered, not for the first time, how the other woman could stand to wear what was essentially a bathing suit in forty-five-degree weather.

She could just hear Steve and the Falcon over the engine noise, arguing about whether this was going to screw up the East and West Coast team line-up. Vision loomed colorfully behind them, silently listening to their conversation.

Jan wondered how he felt about the fact that Wanda was about to get off that plane. Things had been awkward with them, since Vision had been disassembled and rebuilt, so awkward that their marriage had fallen apart, and even though Vision had regained the ability to feel emotion, he had claimed that he was over Wanda, that their marriage was a thing of the past. Jan sincerely doubted that was actually true, but with Vision, it was sometimes hard to tell. He had the best poker face of anyone she had ever met.

The quinjet's engine cut off, and the door opened, revealing Wanda, dressed in costume and with a duffle bag in one hand. Next to her was Hank.

Jan blinked, trying to make the sight go away. When it failed to, she turned to Steve. "You didn't tell me _he _was coming," she hissed.

"I didn't _know _he was coming," Steve muttered back. "Don't you think I would have asked your permission first?"

"I'm going to kill Clint," Jan said calmly, plastering a stiff but blandly pleasant smile onto her face.

Steve didn't say anything, but his jaw tightened a little; Clint wasn't exactly his favorite person at the moment, either, though knowing Steve and Clint and the way their perpetual contest of friendly one-up-man-ship worked, he'd get over being annoyed fairly quickly.

Tony appeared behind Hank and Wanda, his altered appearance completely concealed inside the Iron Man armor -- Jan was too busy trying desperately to think of what on Earth she was going to say to Hank to even be disappointed.

"Wanda," Steve said. "Iron Man. And Hank. Clint didn't mention that you wee coming."

Hank flushed, staring at his feet, and Jan refused to let herself feel sorry for him. "I'm the one who took all the preliminary readings on Tony's condition, and performed all the scientific tests. I thought it would... I know more about the situation than anyone else except Wanda. I thought I ought to come. You know, just in case. I'm sure we'll fix this very quickly, and then we can leave again."

"We better," Tony said. The armor's mechanically synthesized voice sounded nearly the same as always, but not quite. Jan wasn't sure she would have noticed it if she hadn't been on a team with Tony for years, but it sounded slightly lighter, as if the voice it was distorting were higher pitched than before. "I have a board meeting next Tuesday."

"When are we meeting with Strange?" Wanda asked. She hadn't so much as glanced at Vision yet. Jan knew how she felt; she wished she could make herself not look at Hank, but she couldn't seem to pull her eyes away.

He looked, well, not good exactly, but definitely better than he had the last time she'd seen him, when the jail and trial mess had still been going on. More like himself. He'd clearly shaved recently, washed his hair, wasn't wearing wrinkled, days-old clothing, and he was standing up straight, despite not meeting anyone's eyes.

Was he on any kind of medication? Getting any kind of treatment? She hadn't asked. She'd been careful to learn as little about what Hank was doing or not doing as possible. It wasn't her problem anymore. Wasn't her problem anymore. He'd lost any right to her concern and support when he'd hit her.

"Strange is coming over some time tomorrow," Steve was saying. "I managed to use the generous amount of lead time you three and Clint gave me on this to call him and fill him in on the situation, and once he finished laughing, he agreed to help."

"He didn't actually laugh," Wanda said, smiling a little. "Laughing would ruin his image."

"Well, no," Steve admitted, "but there was a long, telling silence during which I could feel him smirking at me."

She-Hulk took a step forward, placing herself between Wanda and the pointedly-not-looking-at-Wanda form of Vision. "Speaking of which, Tony, I think we're all curious about what you look like under that helmet. Do you mind taking it off and giving us a show, so we can get all the snickering out of our systems now?"

Tony shook his head. "Inside. I don't need to give those people on the internet who are convinced that Iron Man is my secret kept woman any more ammunition."

"People on the internet think what?" the Falcon asked, raising his eyebrows in open skepticism. "Ignore it. People will say anything on the internet."

"There's a facebook group and a twitter hashtag dedicated to it, and sometimes people write NC-17-rated fiction about it." There was a pause just long enough for Jan to begin to seriously wonder how and why Tony knew this, and then he added, "Pepper emails it to me."

"And you read it?" Wanda asked, staring at him in mild astonishment.

"It's like a trainwreck," Tony said, after what might have been a small, embarrassed pause. "I can't look away."

The Falcon shook his head slightly. "Of course you can't."

"That's arguably libel, you know." She-Hulk shrugged, tossing her hair back over one shoulder. "I could sue them for you, if you want, but it's not really worth the effort. You would probably lose, anyway. The last three lawsuits I was hired to bring against the Daily Bugle did." She grinned. "Just be glad it's not a porn site dedicated to you."

"Admit it," Tony said, as Steve made a small, strangled sound, "you're proud of that website."

"Well, it's flattering, in a weird kind of way. I'll give them that."

And just like that, Jan realized, the painful, frozen tension in the air was gone. Well, if you ignored the fact that Hank was still staring at his feet and hadn't spoken since apologizing for being here, Vision was still pretending to be incapable of speech at all, and Tony was doing the bantering thing with everyone _but _Steve.

"Let's move this inside, people," Steve said now, nodding at the mansion's back entrance. "The sooner we get all of this over with, the sooner you three can go home."

There was an awkward pause, during which Tony did not point out that the Avengers Mansion was, technically speaking, _his _house.

The silence hung there for a moment, leaden and accusing, though Jan wasn't sure who was accusing who. "Your old rooms are still open," she said to Wanda. "You didn't bring much luggage; I guess you're not planning to stay long?"

Wanda blinked. "You're joking, right? This bag has half the clothes I own in it." She hefted the duffle bag, which was, admittedly, large, but still barely big enough to contain a week's worth of clothing, when you added shoes, and offered Jan a wry smile. "I usually try to travel light, but we didn't know how long this would take."

"She-Hulk and I will take you shopping tomorrow," Jan promised. "As soon as Strange is done fixing Tony."

The moment the mansion's door closed behind them all, Vision turned to Tony and said, "I'm sure this is but a temporary inconvenience for you. Strange will probably repair it tomorrow, but if I can be of any assistance..."

"We'll call you down to the lab if we need you," Hank said.

Vision nodded solemnly, and faded into transparency, floating away through the ceiling. Wanda stared after him, her features set in a blank expression that Jan could tell took effort to maintain. "I'll go unpack," she said, and walked off in the direction of the back staircase, shoulders stiff.

Tony had beat a hasty retreat as well, declining the offer to remove the armor or even just take off his helmet, and the Falcon had pulled Steve aside for a low-voiced conversation that involved lots of emphatic hand gestures, which left Jan staring at Hank.

"I..." he started, then hesitated. "I can go back to LA if, um, if you really want me to," he blurted out, after the pause had grown just long enough to feel unnatural.

_'Yes' _Jan wanted to say. _'I want you to.' _But solving Tony's problem was more important than her personal feelings; it was time to be an adult about things. She could handle having Hank around for a few days; it wasn't as if they would actually have to spend any time together. He was just here to help Tony. So she shook her head, and said, "No. Tony might need you. You're right; you're the one who's run all the tests on this. And you're a good scientist, everything else aside. You always have been."

"Yes," Hank said, "but I -- I'll just, just go set up the lab." He fled the hallway so quickly that Jan almost called him back, old instinct temporarily overwhelming good sense.

"Well," She-Hulk said, "I can see that the next couple of days are going to be fun."

ooOOoo

Steve had spent the past twenty-four hours doing his level best to stay out of Tony's way. It wasn't exactly that he was avoiding him, it was just that... okay, he was avoiding him. Tony hadn't exactly made it difficult; he had spent most of the previous day hiding in either his room or the lab, presumably either running more tests on himself, or trying to run Stark Industries long-distance via the internet. The handful of times Steve had passed him in the hallway, he'd been wearing the armor, they way he had before the rest of them had learned his identity.

Which was not an experience Steve was going to forget any time soon. The memory of Tony's nearly naked body made it much more difficult not to forgive him, but after everything that had happened... Tony could have the physique of a Greek god, and it still would have had no impact on Steve's ability to trust him, which he couldn't do anymore. Not now that he knew the lengths to which Tony was prepared to go to accomplish a goal. At least not until Tony explained why, exactly, he felt those lengths were necessary.

And it had better be a damn good explanation.

The Mansion was full of high-tech training apparatus, but Steve had always found beating the daylights of out a traditional, low-tech heavy bag to be the most therapeutic way to spend an hour or so, when he couldn't get someone else to spar with him (Sam would never agree to do it any time Steve was visibly annoyed or upset about something. "It's supposed to be fun," he'd said, when Steve had asked him. "Not an excuse to find yourself a human punching bag.").

He'd only just managed to break a sweat, knuckles not even sore yet, when the gym door opened and Hank ducked in.

Steve ignored him, continuing to throw hard right and left jabs at the bag, putting his entire bodyweight behind them. If Hank was here for a reason, he'd tell Steve, but chances were good he was just trying to stay out of Jan's sight, which Steve supposed was fair; Jan hadn't exactly agreed to having him back here.

"Strange is just about finished with his examination," Hank said, after a moment. "He wants to talk to you about his results."

"Has he figured out how to turn Iron Man back yet?" Steve asked, though Hank's less-than-enthusiastic demeanor had already told him the answer.

"That's what he wants to talk to you about."

"And he sent you to fetch me?"

"I needed an excuse to leave the room anyway. He had Tony take his shirt off so he could get a better read on... something. I don't know. It apparently required bare skin." He paused, making a wry face, and added, "Tony makes a disturbingly attractive woman."

Of course he did.

Steve sighed, and went to put his own shirt back on.

Tony was buttoning his own shirt back up when Steve arrived, fingers on the button one down from the top. He was a lot... smaller.

He didn't look as different as Steve had expected. His nose was a fraction more delicate, his chin a little more pointed, but he still had the same angular cheekbones and full lips, the same slightly-wavy dark hair, cut just a tiny bit too long in a way that looked too careless not to be expensively deliberate. Now, though, the same cut had suddenly become very short. It gave him -- her? -- a faintly gamine look.

He did not in the slightest live up to the fantasies Steve had been guiltily trying to suppress -- too thin, the small waist and gently rounded hips that ought have been part of a lush, hourglass figure accompanied instead by breasts small enough that they were barely visible under the oversized man's shirt that was clearly one of Tony's own.

"Ah. Captain America," Strange said. "I'm glad you could join us."

"He can't change me back," Tony interjected, with no preamble. "Tuesday is going to suck."

"I can't change you back yet." Strange held up a single finger. "Don't be so quick to give up hope. You've been placed under an extremely complex and powerful spell, by a being of incredible power, and I will need to study the magics used on you further before I can safely unravel them."

"It looks like you'll be staying longer than just a few days, then," Steve said, coming further into the room. He loomed over Tony now by over half a foot; it was disconcerting.

Tony shook his head, and started to pace, hands linked behind his back. It was a familiar motion, something Steve had seen him do before when planning something. "I'll need to call a press conference as soon as possible. I have to put my own spin on this before the Bugle or one of my competitors gets ahold of it." He turned on his heel, facing Steve again, and sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. "Once I've taken care of that, I'll go back to my apartment at SI and get out of your hair."

Steve shook his head. "This is your house," he said, more stiffly than he'd intended to. "If you think you'd be more comfortable, or safer here... you're still an Avenger."

Tony blinked. "I'm still- Of course. You have a full line-up here already, Cap. I can just... stay out of your hair."

"Actually," Wanda said, "I'm staying, too. Or at least, I was thinking of staying, if it won't cause too much trouble, to keep working on this. I'm sorry, Tony. I've been studying chaos magic on my own, but I haven't had anyone to teach me since Agnes. I have much better control over my powers than I used to, but I know I'm not doing as much as I could. I should be able to fix you."

Strange raised an eyebrow. "Chaos magic can't be used to restore order to a disordered system."

Wanda shook her head, wisps of hair flying around her face. "No, but I ought to be able to use it to disrupt the spell."

"That's a very astute point, Ms. Maximoff," Strange allowed. "As long as we're working together to attempt to restore your teammate to his usual self, I suppose I could instruct you in the ways of magic. You're nowhere near as far advanced as Clea, but you have managed to make a considerable amount of progress on your own, already."

"Oh, thank you," Wanda said dryly.

Did Strange pick up on her sarcasm, Steve wondered, or was his arrogance too impenetrable for that? He was, admittedly, very good at what he did, but he also was very, very aware of exactly how good at it he was.

"I'm glad I'm proving to be such a learning experience for everyone," Tony said. His newly husky voice was unfamiliar, but the sharp sarcasm in it was not.

"Sorry," Wanda said again. "This has just made me realize how much I have left to learn."

Tony sighed, and turned away a little, wrapping his arms around his torso. With his face turned away, he barely even looked like Tony anymore, but that bit of body language was also familiar; Steve had seem him fold his arms defensively like that even in the armor.

"If you both are staying, I really ought to go back," Hank said. He had been lurking in the doorway, so quiet that Steve had almost forgotten he was there. "I... probably should anyway."

Strange frowned. "I might have further tests I'd like your assistance with." He shrugged, the frown replaced by a slightly self-deprecating smile, and added, "I never did get the hang of doing my own labwork, back in medical school."

"I can fly back out on the quinjet if you need me," Hank said firmly.

Strange raised an eyebrow again, but thankfully let it go at that. Steve felt a brief flash of relief that he wasn't pushing further -- everyone knew about the trial, and Hank nearly being sent to jail after being used as a pawn by Egghead, but the exact nature of what had happened between Hank and Jan was Jan's secret to tell, and not something Steve would have been comfortable sharing with anyone outside the Avengers. Even most of the current team didn't know exactly why their marriage had ended, just that it had.

"You don't have to leave," Tony said, still not looking at the rest of them. "No one's kicking you out."

That wasn't entirely true -- they _weren't _going to kick Hank out, but his staying wasn't a good idea, and Steve doubted Jan would welcome his presence as a longterm thing. And to his credit, Hank clearly knew that.

"Yes I do," Hank said. "Otherwise, Tigra, Bobbi, and Clint will be holding down the fort in LA by themselves."

Tony's lips twitched. "Good point. Clint and Bobbi would probably kill each other before the three of us got back."

There was a momentary pause, while Hank and Wanda both looked at Tony with raised eyebrows. "You know," Hank said, "you're a lot meaner as a woman."

"You try losing key body parts and see if it puts you in a good mood," Tony muttered. "And I wasn't exactly a nice guy before."

"If this goes on too long, it's going to throw the team line-ups off balance," Steve pointed out, trying to bring the topic back to the matter at hand. "We're going to have to do something about that."

Tony waved a hand. "If I have to, I can go back to the West Coast and fly back any time they have a new spell to try on me. I actually had to be in New York this week anyway, for a board meeting." He made a wry face, and added, "I'm running a lot of SI's R&D department from the West Coast now, but most of my board don't want to go any further from Wall Street than you have to go in order to go antiquing in Connecticut. Not unless it's to Europe."

"All right," Steve said, "I think we can make that work." He hesitated, and then, unable to resist asking, "How are you going to explain this," he gestured vaguely at Tony's altered body, "to the board members?"

"I'm trying not to think about that." Tony sighed. "Let's just go tell everyone else that I'm stuck like this and get that fun experience over with."

ooOOoo

_--forward the schematics to me and I'll take a look at them. I think the tolerance margins may be too narrow; remember, the computer can calculate things more exactly than our machining tools can reproduce._

Tony hit send, not bother to type a closing or signature -- everyone at SI recognized his email address -- and opened the next message in his inbox. He'd tried to put it off as long as possible, dealing with all the messages from the engineering and manufacturing departments first, but the red-flagged "important" emails from the accounting and marketing guys might actually be important.

Thank God for the internet; he could do a good two-third of the work he usually did in his office while sitting right here in his lab at the Avengers Mansion. Some of the board members and prospective large-scale customers might be irritated that he'd emailed them back instead of calling their cell phones or secretaries as requested, but an email was vastly preferably to no response at all, and he hadn't been off the radar for long enough for people to get suspicious yet.

He couldn't stay away from the office forever, though. There was the board meeting the day after tomorrow, and...

Maybe he could have Iron Man show up and inform people that Tony Stark was sick, and couldn't come.

No. Tony shook his head, and viciously deleted an email nagging him to set up an appointment to discuss his recent re-acquisition of his technology with SHIELD. If Fury wanted to come yell at him, let him track Tony down personally first.

No, claiming to be sick wouldn't work. Everyone would assume "sick" was a euphemism for "drunk." It didn't matter that his heart surgery was public knowledge; he'd forfeited the benefit of the doubt with his recent behavior, and any failure to appear at a scheduled meeting would only strengthen the prevailing opinion in the business world that he was unreliable.

At least the other Avengers didn't and wouldn't blame him for being turned into a girl, despite the headaches reshuffling team membership so that he and Wanda could stay on the East Coast and concealing Iron Man's temporary transformation into "Iron Woman" was going to cause them. And they'd mostly stopped snickering.

He'd expected them -- Steve especially -- to be annoyed at the very least, especially given how utterly he'd failed to fulfill his responsibilities to the team last year, but in retrospect, he realized, it had been a silly fear. The drinking, losing the company, having to hand the armor off to Rhodey, had all been his fault. His current transformation wasn't. And if they'd been willing to take him back after the months he'd spent as an unreliable alcoholic mess, then the team wasn't going to withdraw their support because he'd come out the loser in a fight with Loki.

The sound of voices in the hall pulled his attention away from his email.

"I know he's here, Jarvis. I traced the IP address he sent the last thirty emails SI's gotten from him to the mansion."

Pepper. Tony winced, suddenly regretting the fact that he'd taught her how to do that little trick, which she'd apparently learned well enough that the measures he'd taken to hide the location of the computer he was using hadn't stopped her.

He resisted the impulse to hide behind a piece of equipment and made himself stay put, bracing himself for her reaction; she would have to find out eventually, and everyone would know after Tuesday. Better to get it over with now.

"Mr. Stark doesn't wish to be disturbed-" Jarvis was saying.

"Too bad." Pepper cut him off ruthlessly. "He hasn't been in the office in four days. Bambi Arbogast is at her wits end. You know what happened the last time he disappeared. I know you're in there, Tony," she called, as the door swung open, "don't bother hiding."

Pepper froze in the doorway, a PDA in one hand and a stylus in the other. "Who are-" she broke off, staring at him. "Tony?!"

"Yes," he sighed. "It's me. It's a very, very long story."

Then she started to laugh. "A woman," she managed, after a moment. "You've been turned into a woman. Tony Stark, world famous billionaire industrialist playboy, is a woman."

Did every woman he knew other than Wanda have to sound so gleeful? He wasn't that bad, surely. Tony buried his face in his hands, closing his eyes; it felt strange to rub his hands over his face and not feel the slight rough catch of facial hair, another reminder that his body wasn't his own anymore. "I hate my life," he muttered.

"So," Pepper said, her voice serious and businesslike, "do you want me to call a press conference for tomorrow, or do you just want to walk into the meeting Tuesday unannounced and break the news then? And if you're going to do that, can I watch?"

Tony looked up again, to find her visibly struggling to suppress a smile. "You don't seem very surprised by any of this."

Pepper raised her eyebrows. "After six years of working for you, it takes a lot to surprise me," she said dryly.

Tony lowered his head into his hands again, digging his fingers into his hair. "I bet the board's going to be surprised, though. Half of them have been looking for an excuse to get rid of me again, not that I blame them."

"They can't get rid of you for being a girl, Tony. New York has several nice laws forbidding that kind of thing."

"Oh, it won't be because I'm a woman." If there was one thing his fellow businessmen excelled at, it was finding justifications for not hiring or promoting women or minorities that didn't actually involve their being women and minorities. Tony had used it to his advantage before; people who'd been unjustly passed over for promotion three times tended to jump at the chance to leave their current place of employ and come and work for him, especially when he offered them the higher paying job with greater responsibility that they should have already had. "It will be because they 'don't believe' I'm really Tony Stark, or because being transformed into a woman has clearly unhinged my mind, or they're concerned for my health, or something."

Pepper snorted. "Concerned for your health? I'd like to see them try that one."

"Well, yeah," Tony admitted, "if booting me out over concern for my health didn't work when I was having open heart surgery, I doubt it will work now, but that's not going to stop them from trying."

"How thoroughly, um, feminine are you? Could you pass a DNA test?"

"One chromosome different, according to Hank Pym, which is enough to convince the Avengers that I'm Tony Stark, but isn't going to fly with the business world. They won't see anything beyond the fact that it's not an exact match." He held up one hand and wriggled his fingers. "My fingerprints are the same, though. And I still have all the same scars and other identifying marks."

"Who knew your checkered medical history would turn out to be so useful?"

Tony glared up at her. He would have stood, but he had a nasty suspicion that Pepper, in her customary three-inch heels, would turn out to be taller than he currently was. "I'm glad this is so amusing for you," he said.

Pepper lips twitched. "I'm sorry, Tony," she said gravely, though from the look on her face, she was only barely keeping her mirth contained. As apologies went, it wasn't particularly convincing. But then, Thor had already apologized enough for everybody, before running off to personally hunt down Loki for vengeance.

"Suggestions for ways to make Tuesday turn out to be something less than a total disaster would be appreciated," he muttered. Today's meeting with the rest of the team had gone better than he'd expected -- the rest of the Avengers had taken the news that they were stuck with a female Iron Man for the foreseeable future in stride, and Jen and Vision had offered to take his and Wanda's places in California, Vision in a transparent attempt to not have to be where Wanda was, and Jen because she'd apparently been nursing either a deep-seated desire to go be on the same team as Clint so she could throw him into walls again, or a deep-seated desire to force Tony and Steve to have to work together once more, something she'd already informed him would be good for the Avengers as a whole -- but he doubted he'd be so lucky with the board.

"Clothing that actually fits would be a start." Pepper gestured at Tony's dress shirt, now over-sized and hanging off his shoulders. "So would a bra. We wear them for a reason, you know."

Mentioning that he'd been down in the lab in the first place so that he could avoid Jan and Wanda's attempts to make him come along on the shopping expedition they'd left for this morning would get him nowhere, Tony knew. "I'm not wearing a skirt," he said. "Or heels. I'm not actually a woman."

"It's the twenty-first century, Tony. You can wear exactly the same thing as you always do, just in a size and cut that doesn't make it look like you're wearing your boyfriend's clothing."

"If I hadn't said anything, you'd have arranged for me to wear one of those Businesswoman Barbie suits that have a miniskirt instead of pants."

Pepper didn't even bother trying to deny it. "You'd be cute in a miniskirt, sir. The board would love it."

Tony shuddered. "Please don't say that." At least one or two of them _would, _he suspected. Some, like Layton and Shooter, had been on the board of directors since his father had been his age, and he'd once seen Shooter pat a secretary on the ass.

Flirting with one's co-workers and subordinates was one thing. Actually touching them crossed the line from harmless fun into outright harassment.

Tony sighed, and cast a wistful glance at the schematics for the Mansion's security system, which he'd had spread out across the workbench beside his laptop, waiting until he finished answering his email, and the armor sitting patiently in the middle of the lab, awaiting the modifications that would compensate for his new lower bodyweight, smaller size, and altered center of gravity. "You're right. We'd better go get me something to wear. I'm going to need it before you call that press conference."

ooOOoo


	2. Chapter 2

_Title_: An Ever Fixed Mark

_Author_: seanchai and elspethdixon

_Rating_: PG-13

_Pairings_/Characters: Steve/Tony, Jan, Hank, Wanda, assorted other Avengers

_Labels_: gender-swap

_Warnings_: This fic deals with pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage.

* * *

**Part Two:**

Strange's study was lit almost entirely by natural light, sunlight pouring in through the huge, round window set in the far wall. At night, the main illumination would come from the candles scattered around the room, some of them stuck directly to tables or projecting pieces of the room's plaster molding with puddles of their own melted wax. Wanda eyed them speculatively and hoped that Strange had cast some form of fire prevention spell over the house. Several of them were dangerously close to the heavy brocade curtains that hung in the doorway and against one wall, and one half-melted specimen was glued to the top of a pile of books by a waterfall of wax that had dripped and then hardened.

Agatha's house had always been filled with a comfortingly old-fashioned collection of Victorian clutter, but Strange went her one better. The walls were lined with book shelves, most of them jammed with leather-bound books, but some of them holding statues of strange, tentacled monsters, braziers cast in fanciful shapes, crystal balls of various sizes and colors, including several made from actual rock crystal, and one subtlety inhuman skull. The lettering on the spines of some of the books seemed to writhe when she wasn't looking directly at it.

The Sanctum Sanctorum was said to contain portals to other dimensions within its walls, to be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Wanda believed it. Strange's -- servant? Partner? -- had led her down yard after yard of twisting corridors and up more staircases than there were stories in the building in order to bring her to this room, and she could feel the latent magical energy in the air here.

It made the hair along her arms stand up. Power, ready for the taking, or ready for those who could forms of magic other than pure chaos energy, anyway.

Strange was waiting for her by the window, in full sorcerer supreme regalia. Did he ever wear anything else?

Wanda glanced down at her broomstick skirt and brown leather boots and wondered if she ought to have come in costume. Would Strange think she looked unprofessional?

"You're on time," Strange observed. "Good. We have a lot of work to do." Before Wanda could ask any of the numerous questions she had for him, he continued, "Before we can do anything else, we must first gauge the extant of your training."

"How are we going to do that?" she asked. It was a perfectly reasonable way to begin, but she nevertheless felt a hint of trepidation. What exactly would he want her to do? Presumably nothing dangerous, but if she failed... Strange would probably have no compunctions about refusing to teach her any further.

At least Clea wasn't there. The other woman was the daughter of a goddess, raised in a demon dimension; she had learned her first lesson in magic from Dormammu himself, long before she'd ever become Strange's apprentice. Wanda, human and only half-trained, couldn't hope to measure up, and it would have been humiliating to have to display her comparative lack of knowledge in front of Strange's first student.

Strange fetched a fist-sized crystal ball down from one of the shelves and brought it over to her. "This is one of the Crystal Spheres of Contemplation," he said, holding it out to her. "If a magician meditates while holding it, his or her power and strength of will causes it to glow. The brightness of the light it emits will allow me to determine the amount of raw power you posses, and the steadiness of the light will reveal the strength of your mental discipline."

That sounded reassuringly non-painful, and similar to some of the meditation exercises Agatha had had her perform, though Agatha hadn't used magical artifacts, preferring candles and circles of runes.

The crystal of contemplation was heavy, carved from a single piece of rose quartz with one milky-white flaw near its center. Wanda sat cross-legged on Strange's thick oriental rug and closed her eyes, rolling the crystal between her hands and trying to relax, to let her hex powers fill her without actually using them. Ensuring that the power she called up didn't being to warp chance and probability out of true around her took a significant amount of concentration.

The crystal was growing warm in her hands, like something living, and it had begun to glow just brightly enough that she could see its light as a soft red glow through her closed eyelids.

"Very good," Strange's voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and Wanda started, opening her eyes, the light from the crystal fading away as she did so.

"You have considerable magical potential," he said, "though your training is incomplete. I expected as much. Magic is a matter of imposing your will upon reality, and you were able to do that so successfully when you created your twins that even I was unaware of their true nature. Their place in reality was not fixed, their existence given shape only by your will, but that will was strong enough that when you were present, the illusion was seamless."

Wanda winced; she could still hear her children's screams as Mephisto had re-absorbed them back into himself. She had been able to make them exist while she was around them; if she had been more knowledgeable, more experienced, more skilled, would she have been able to make the spell permanent, make them real?

Strange would be able to tell her the answer to that, she knew, but she didn't want to ask. She already felt uneasily as if she were betraying Agatha by seeking out training from another sorcerer. She wasn't going to ask Strange to second-guess Agatha's advice. Whatever answer he gave, it wouldn't make losing the twins any easier. Would knowing that it was her own fault, or that Agatha had encouraged her to try to create them too soon be worse, or knowing that it had been a forlorn hope, an impossible task that no witch or sorceress would have been able to successfully complete?

Strange was frowning at her, she realized, a faint expression of concern on his long, angular face. He was probably regretting bring the subject of the twins up at all -- people all thought they had to walk on eggshells around her over it, that reminding her of it would cause her to have some kind of emotional breakdown.

"If you do not mind me asking," she began, deliberately changing the subject, "why did you agree to train me? You're infamous for refusing to take on students."

Strange smiled at that, a sardonic flicker of humor in his eyes. "Because untrained magical potential is dangerous, especially for those who have a great deal of it, and there are few forms of magical energy more dangerous and unpredictable than chaos magic. And of those remaining who possess the knowledge and ability to train you, very few can be trusted."

"That isn't very reassuring," Wanda said. It was true, though; most practitioners of chaos magic were malicious tricksters like Loki or worshippers of Chthon.

Strange raised an eyebrow. "I didn't mean it to be," he told her. "Shall we begin? I need for you to demonstrate a spell for me, preferably one of the more complicated ones you know..."

ooOOoo

"You shall pay for humiliating me at our last encounter, Captain!" Zemo shouted. "This time, the Masters of Evil will not be defeated!"

This time, the Masters of Evil consisted of Helmut Zemo, Mister Hyde, and the supervillain formerly known as Goliath, who had finally gotten tired of stealing Hank and Jim Foster's name and begun calling himself Atlas.

Last month, when they had attacked the Avengers Mansion and injured Hercules so badly that he had had to temporarily quit the team -- and beaten up Jarvis, for which Steve was never ever going to forgive them -- they had had the Wrecking Crew along for the ride.

Now it was just the three of them, and Steve was enjoying beating them in the most humiliating way possible very much indeed.

"What happened the last time you guys met?" Tony asked, as he spun sideways in midair to avoid Atlas's giant fist.

"I threw him off the roof," Steve said, and hit Mister Hyde in the face with his shield.

He and Tony might be barely speaking to one another these days, but in a fight, it turned out, their old partnership functioned as well as it ever had. It was almost possible to forget that the person inside the armor wasn't the same man he had known for years, that they weren't friends anymore.

Sam, harassing Atlas on his left, folded his wings and dove under both massive arms, while Tony fired his jetboots and climbed higher, the two of them swapping places as smoothly as if they had choreographed it.

Hyde's fist slammed into Steve's shield, the impact rendering his entire right arm numb. She-Hulk's superhuman strength would be very useful right about now, he reflected. Too bad she had already left for California. Tony and Sam were busy with Atlas, and Jan was occupied flying in circles around Zemo's head to draw the fire from his rifle and Adhesive X gun while Wanda steadily transformed the Mansion's front lawn into a living, vengeful obstacle course around him.

Which left Steve to slug it out with Hyde. He'd done it before and he could do it again -- Hyde might have super-strength, but he relied on it almost exclusively in fight, and his combat skills were no match for years of training and experience -- but it always cost him a heavy toll in bruises and cracked bones.

Steve swayed backwards, aiming a kick at Hyde's ribs that should have broken bones but was probably only going to leave bruises. "You should have stayed in prison," he said, switching his shield to his left hand. "They'll add another three years to your sentence for this escape."

"A truly great mind cannot be imprisoned," Hyde snarled.

Steve managed to turn sideways and take the punch intended for his face on his right shoulder, which spared him the moment of dizziness a blow to the head might have cost him, but only further cemented his arm's temporary uselessness.

"I will not be humiliated like this!" Zemo shrieked. A garden hose was tangled around his ankles, a Gordian knot of green rubber, and part of his purple mask had been singed black by Jan's stingers. He fired his rifle in Jan's general direction, the muzzle blast ear-splitting, but he had come loaded with massive bullets designed to take down Thor or She-Hulk, and Jan's tiny form was too small a target for him to hit.

"That's for Jarvis!" Jan shouted, blasting him directly in his purple-fabric-covered face.

Hyde, damn him, was not tiring. Steve managed to catch another blow on his shield, this time at an angle that deflected most of its force. He let the momentum carry him around, kicking Hyde viciously in the gut with as much force as he could muster.

Hyde doubled over, the breath wooshing out of him, and his huge, sausage-fingered hands closed around Steve's ankle, gripping so tightly that it felt as if his bones were being ground together.

Steve hit the ground hard, just managing to roll out of the way of a kick that would have caved in his skull. Then there was a familiar high-pitched whine of energy, as a repulsor beam caught Hyde right between the shoulder blades.

Hyde staggered forward a step and fell to one knee, and Steve rolled to his feet and slammed his shield into the other man's jaw in the same motion, using the momentum of his own upward movement to add power to the blow.

Hyde's head snapped back, and he crumpled to the ground, out like a light.

That was always such a satisfying move to perform, Steve reflected. Dangerous to use on anyone who didn't share Hyde's enhanced durability, though; if his shield collided with someone's face at the wrong angle, it could drive bone fragments into their brain and kill them.

He'd done it several times during the war, including once by accident. He had no desire to repeat the experience.

Steve straightened, and turned to face Tony, ready to offer a sincere if slightly grudging thanks, when a resounding _thud _made the earth beneath his feet vibrate. It was followed, a half a second later, by an explosion.

Steve spun around, shield at the ready, to find Atlas stretched full length on the ground, out cold, with Sam sitting on his back. Zemo was standing stock still, covered in thick, ropey strands of Adhesive X; his rifle was completely coated in it and utterly useless. There were grass clippings all over him, stuck to the globs of adhesive. He looked like he'd been tarred and feathered.

Wanda was smirking openly at him, dusting her hands together with the air of someone who had just finished performing a distasteful but necessary task. Jan was perched daintily on her shoulder. Steve couldn't see her expression, but he would have been willing to bet money that she was smirking, too.

"Good luck getting the glue off," Wanda said. "If you're fortunate, they'll only have to take off a few layers of skin to do it."

The police arrived several minutes later, and looked less than pleased to see Hyde; this was, after all, his third arrest in the space of two months, if the aborted escape attempt Steve had halted a couple of weeks ago counted.

Zemo, however, they were extremely pleased to see, or at least visibly amused by. Steve was sure he heard a few snickers as they -- very carefully -- cuffed him and led him away.

As the police cars pulled away, Steve surveyed the wreckage of the Mansion's lawn and wriggled the fingers of his right hand as the numbness slowly faded from them. His shoulder was throbbing now, the heat of bruises already gathering under the skin.

"Good work, Avengers," he said, making sure to glance in Tony's direction so that he would know he was included in that statement as well. "Now, what were we doing before these goons showed up?"

"Well, whatever I was doing before, it's been replaced by called the landscapers to do something about this." Jan waved a hand at the torn-up lawn. "They've fixed worse damage before, but I want to make sure we get this taken care of before Jarvis feels like he has to start repairing it. He shouldn't have to clean up after those jerks."

"No," Steve agreed. "He shouldn't." Zemo's Masters of Evil had sent Jarvis to the emergency room the last time they'd visited the mansion. Jarvis shouldn't have to do a second's worth of extra work on their account.

"Offer them a bonus if they're done by the end of the day," Tony said. "Tell them Mr. Stark is paying for it."

Jan offered him a bright smile. "I was planning to."

"I can't even remember what I was doing before they showed up." Sam shook his head, winced, and then rolled his neck in a slow circle. "You know, my old apartment never got attacked this often. This place is like Grand Central for supervillains."

"The price of living in the Avengers Mansion," Steve sighed. "Being this close to Central Park's jogging trails is worth it, though."

"Says you," Sam snorted. "How many fights with someone in brightly colored spandex did you get into while you were out running last week?"

"Only two," Steve protested. "And they were good exercise."

Sam shook his head. "You're not even joking, are you?"

Wanda glanced down at her watch, frowning. "Stopped again," she muttered. "What time is it, Iron Man?"

"Just past one." Tony tilted his head slightly, considering, the armor's faceplate remaining as impassive as always. "An old fashioned clockwork number would stand up to your powers better, you know."

"I had one. You have no idea how many ways there are for something with that many tiny, moving parts to break." Before Tony could offer the inevitable reply that he knew exactly how many ways there were and start listing them to prove it, she went on, "and I was supposed to be at Strange's sanctum sanctorum at one for a lesson. He can never be bothered to be on time for anything, but woe betide the rest of us if we keep him waiting."

That was when the channel five news van arrived, unusually late on the scene -- normally, they beat the police to the site of a super-powered fight by a large margin. Steve seized eagerly on Jan and Sam's offer to deal with them, probably prompted by the stiff way he was moving, and escaped inside as quickly as he could, Tony hot on his heels.

Tony avoided reporters like the plague these days, both in and out of the armor. He had adjusted the armor's voice modifiers to conceal his new, feminine voice, but he was still paranoid about the idea that someone might notice a difference and connect the dots.

If the press had managed to catch up with him, they would have only pressured Iron Man for more news about his boss's transformation. It was the only news story involving the Avengers that the Bugle and the Times had been printing for the past ten days.

It had actually managed to pull the papers' attention away from speculation over whether or not Tony had been involved in his 'bodyguard's' rampage of destruction two months ago, something Steve hadn't previously believed possible. Tony had offered the press even less in the way of an explanation than he had given Steve, claiming that 'Iron Man' had been acting on his own initiative, and that a new bodyguard was wearing the armor now.

Unsurprisingly, no one really believed either half of that statement.

Steve ought to have told at the very least the police the truth -- Tony had broken the law, after all, and caused a significant amount of property damage in the process -- but he hadn't been able to give up the hope that Tony would redeem himself somehow, that he would offer up some explanation for his actions that excused or explained them.

He hadn't, of course, beyond assuring Steve that 'Iron Man' still had his back. Once, he would have explained himself to Steve without hesitation, but Steve had the unhappy feeling that those days were over, possibly for good.

"I hate reporters,' Tony said, as the Mansion's heavy door swung shut behind them.

"Why?" Steve asked. "Because they have that annoying habit of asking questions like 'Whose orders was Iron Man following when he broke all those federal laws and killed Titanium Man?'" All right, maybe that sounded a little harsher than he'd meant it to.

"That was an accident!" Tony snapped, the strain in his voice clear even though the helmet's voice modifier. "His armor malfunctioned!"

Steve stopped in his tracks, going cold, the ache in his battered arm forgotten. "You mean that really was you? I thought the Russians were just taking advantage of your apparent temporary insanity to pin the blame for his death on you."

Tony had demonstrated that he was willing to go to extreme, even criminal lengths to reclaim his stolen technology, but murder? "We don't kill people, Tony. Not when lives aren't at stake."

Tony shook his head, holding his gauntleted hands up, palms out, but Steve didn't want to hear whatever excuse he was about to make. Not right now.

"We'll talk about this later," Steve said. Then he turned on his heel and left, leaving Tony standing motionless in the middle of the front hallway.

What he really wanted to do was go down to the Mansion's gym and beat the stuffing out of the heavy bag there until he could think about this calmly, but his shoulder was already bruised and sore as it was; putting himself through what would essentially be the second fight in a row right now would only make it worse, and could turn mere soreness into an actual injury.

Instead, he went to the kitchen and dug an icepack out of the freezer, then dropped into one of the solid wooden chairs and held the plastic bag full of ice against his shoulder. It would have worked better if the leather and mail of his costume weren't in the way, but trying to strip out of the skin-tight leather right now was more trouble than it was worth. He'd wait a few minutes, he decided, let the ice start to numb things.

Tony had killed someone. In the armor. Killing someone with his repulsor gauntlets was what started the downward spiral that nearly killed him in the first place; Steve would have sworn any oath someone cared to name that Tony would never willingly use his armor to kill again, not unless other people's lives were at stake.

Damnit, maybe he actually had gone crazy. It wouldn't be the first time one of them had snapped under pressure.

If Tony had broken under pressure before, he could do so again, and Tony was under an awful lot of pressure right now.

And to think that he'd thought the Avengers' biggest problem right now was the fact that Tony was a woman.

The ice pack felt good against his shoulder, but it was starting to make his fingers numb; the leather of his gloves was thinner than the rest of his costume, for flexibility's sake. Steve shifted his grip on the ice pack and wondered when exactly his team had started to fall apart.

Had it been with Hank, or even before that? Wanda and Vision had broken up, Hank and Tony had both fallen apart, half Steve's teammates had taken off for the West Coast to start a new team, which was a useful and important thing to do, but he missed the days when everyone had been a together in New York, almost like a family.

He had missed that, over the past year or so, while the Avengers line-up shifted constantly around him, never staying the same for more than a month at a time. Captain Marvel and the Black Knight were very good at what they did, skilled professionals whom it was a pleasure to work with, and Namor was an old friend, no matter how irritating he could be, but they weren't Steve's family, not the way his old team had been. When Monica and Dain had left the team to take care of their own affairs, it hadn't hurt or disappointed him, not the way it had when Tony had left, when Hank had had to be kicked out, and it hadn't just been because they'd left under infinitely more favorable circumstances, although that had helped.

Steve had just gotten up to swap the icepack out for one that wasn't starting to melt when the very last person he wanted to see appeared in the kitchen doorway.

"Steve," Tony started. "I-" he broke off, looking away.

Tony had taken the armor off, something he did as little as possible these days, and was wearing jeans and a burgundy sweater that had once fit him perfectly and now hung on him, hiding the curves of breasts and hips under shapeless wool. Steve wondered if it was intentional. Had Tony deliberately tried to make himself look vulnerable, non-confrontational, before coming in search of him?

"I can't believe," Steve said, quietly, "that you killed someone and forgot to mention it."

"It was on the news." Tony's voice was low, even. "I thought you knew."

To be honest, it had been, but Steve hadn't thought- "I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, God knows why."

Tony flinched. "I didn't mean to. I-- his armor malfunctioned, caught on fire. Neither of us could get it to stop." He looked away, then back up at Steve, meeting his eyes squarely. "If you want me to leave the team, I won't argue, but I owe you the whole story before I go."

An accident. Of course it was an accident. Tony would never intentionally use his armor to murder someone. But then, once Steve would have said that Tony would never have used his armor against _him, _or against SHIELD. "What were you doing, Tony? What did you think you were- Why were you even fighting him in the first place?" He knew why -- to get his precious technology back, technology that was apparently worth more to Tony than friendships, the law, or people's safety and lives -- but he wanted to hear Tony say it, wanted to hear him either admit that it was wrong or offer some kind of explanation that would make it all make sense.

"Of all the people I couldn't risk having access to my tech..." Tony shook his head. "Russia sells arms to anyone who wants them these days. Who knows where my designs could have ended up?" He gestured vaguely at the air around him with a slender hand that still didn't look like it belonged to him. "China. North Korea. Afghanistan. I could have been responsible for the next major terrorist attack."

Tony had a strange concept of responsibility, obsessively over-zealous at some times and then nearly non-existent at others. Steve belated realized that he was still holding the fresh icepack, and put it against his shoulder again without taking his eyes off Tony. "And so you thought you'd prevent that by blowing things up?"

Tony sighed, looking down at his feet and then back up. He was still standing in the doorway, neither inside nor outside the room, as if he weren't sure that Steve would welcome his presence, but couldn't quite bring himself to leave. "I stopped selling weapons for a reason, because I couldn't control who had them or how they were used, and damn it, Fury _knows _that. He knows why I-- he was the one who debriefed me when I got back from Afghanistan." Tony's voice had risen, and he was speaking faster now, the world tumbling over one another. "And then he went behind my back last year and stole my patents and my tech, and if you think any of that was just going to stay in SHIELD's hands and not end up being used wherever the government wanted it to be, which it _was_, it was _everywhere_--" He shook his head, hard, hair whipping back and forth around his face. "Titanium Man was almost unstoppable even before he had my technology to augment his suit, and I -- It's my fault it was everywhere. I fucked up, I didn't safeguard my lab properly and I lost control of the company and I had to clean up my own messes. No one else was going to."

Tony's face was easier to read now, maybe because of the lack of facial hair, and the fear and guilt and anger there was raw, barely controlled. He had wrapped both arms around his torso, like he was trying to hold himself together, something Steve had seen him do before, mostly during those months right before he had left the Avengers and nearly stopped being Iron Man for good, the months when, Steve knew now, he had been steadily trying to drink himself into oblivion whenever he wasn't in the armor.

Could he hear how irrational he sounded? How abrupt and shrill his voice had gotten? Did he even realize it?

"And there wasn't a legal way to fight it?" Steve asked, trying to sound as non-accusatory as possible. He managed to keep the anger he still felt out of his voice; the more they talked about this, the more visibly upset Tony got, and if Steve somehow pushed him over the edge, he might never get his explanation. He had to be careful, calm, or Tony would shut down, the way he had in the hotel. "A way that didn't involve taking it back by force?"

Tony closed his eyes for a moment, long lashes dark against his skin. His hands were curled into fists. "Do you think I didn't _try _that?" he snapped. "Do you think Fury would have made a move in the first place if he didn't have his ass covered?" He drew in a long, slightly shaky breath, and added, quietly, "They were using my designs in weapons, Steve."

Weapons. Like the ones that Tony had made once. The ones that had nearly killed him. This level of open anxiety over them was new, though. "You still do contractor work for the military, or at least you did."

Tony shook his head again, the motion jerky. "Communications equipment. Aircraft engines. Medical equipment. Not weapons systems or munitions. Not anymore. I couldn't let them keep my technology. I couldn't. I had to get it back or destroy it, or- or bad things would have happened. People would have died. Because of me. I had to stop it. I _had _to," he repeated, voice sharp and brittle again. "I-"

"Tony," Steve interrupted, and Tony immediately fell silent, his breathing unsteady. "Tony, you know you sound-"

"I don't sound crazy," Tony snapped. "I can't trust anyone with it, not even the government. Especially not the government. You know that. You didn't trust them either. You gave your shield up because you didn't trust them, which is just about like one of the rest of us cutting one of our hands off. Like me giving the armor up."

"I... may have been over-reacting when I did that." Backing down and putting his real costume back on after all of that had been an embarrassing lesson in swallowing one's pride, but it had been the right thing to do. The administration whose actions he had been protesting had been on their way out -- was out, now -- and it had been time to stop grandstanding.

"I can't trust anyone with it!" Tony repeated, all but shouting. "I can't. I-" he broke off, covering his face with one hand. "Oh God, I do sound crazy. I sound like _Hank."_

He didn't sound crazy, not exactly, but he didn't sound anywhere near rational, either.

"You had to regain control of your technology or people might have died," Steve said, carefully. "You do realize that the tactics you were using could have killed people. Did kill someone."

"That was-"

"An accident," Steve agreed. "Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been fighting him to begin with."

"Even if I was, even if SHIELD-" Tony broke off, shook his head sharply, and went on, "I couldn't leave any of my technology in _his _hands. He's killed people before and would have again. Even if I could have trusted Fury, Titanium Man was-- I wasn't over-reacting when I went after him. I didn't mean for him to die," he added. "I tried to put the fire out, but it was burning too hot. He had magnesium in some of his suit's circuitry, I think. And the suit itself wasn't capable of handling the kind of power load my designs required."

Tony pushed past Steve into the kitchen and dropped heavily into the chair Steve had been sitting in, resting his elbows on the table and burying his face in his hands. "So I did kill him, in a way," he said softly, the words muffled by his fingers. "I was just so angry, and so scared. I knew what would happen if I didn't fix things. And it would all have been my fault, and I wouldn't have been able to live with it." He shook his head back and forth minutely, digging his fingers into his hair. "I swear it made sense then. I was trying to keep anyone from getting hurt. Even when I was attacking people, all I wanted was to-"

"Keep people from being killed," Steve interrupted. "I grasp that. I just don't understand why you wouldn't listen to me, why you had to put people's safety at risk."

"I-" Tony started. Then he was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he said finally, voice uneven. "I was so sure that- I said I sounded crazy. Maybe I was. Things haven't made sense in so long that I just don't know anymore."

They didn't make any sense to Steve, either, but at least Tony seemed to realize that he hadn't been acting rationally, if not actually that he'd been wrong.

Steve had thought, when he'd confronted Tony to demand that he stop, and later, when he'd thrown "the Captain's" shield back in Tony's face, that Tony had been completely recovered from whatever it was that had driven him to try and seek oblivion in a bottle -- he had been so determined, so driven, so different from the man who'd been willing to just lie down and die -- but maybe he hadn't been. Neither set of actions had seemed like Tony, unless Steve knew Tony far less well than he had thought, something he'd been willing to believe.

Maybe he didn't know Tony as well as he'd always thought he had, or maybe Tony had completely snapped under the strain of being both Iron Man and Tony Stark. Either way, it bothered him to see Tony so obviously upset, to see him in pain. It made him want to forgive Tony everything, just to see Tony smile at him again.

He couldn't do that, but he could take a step closer to Tony and rest one hand on his shoulder.

Tony stiffened under his touch, and drew in a long breath. "I said I would leave the team if you asked me to, and I meant it, but I swear you can trust me at your back, Steve. You always can. I know you may not believe me anymore, not after what I've done, but..."

Steve flexed his fingers, tightening his grip on Tony's shoulder. It felt too small under his hand, delicate.

Rachel was never delicate. It was one of the things he had liked about her, her strength. One of the things he liked about Tony, too.

"I would put my life on the line for Iron Man," he said. "Or for Tony Stark."

"But you still think I was wrong," Tony said.

Steve didn't answer. He was pretty sure he didn't need to.

Tony sighed, and leaned back into Steve's touch; not much, but just enough for it to be perceptible and slightly disconcerting. "Maybe I was. I would do it again, though. Not in the same way, not with the same mistakes, but I would. It had to be done."

He twisted in his seat, looking up at Steve, and Steve was suddenly very aware that Tony's hand on his wrist was delicate, feminine. That there were breasts under that sweater, the faint swell of them very visible from this angle. He even smelled different, in some subtle way Steve couldn't quite define. Like a woman.

If Steve's eyes had been closed, he wouldn't even have known this was Tony.

He let go of Tony's shoulder and took an abrupt step backward, feeling his face heat. "Thank you," he said, feeling suddenly awkward. "For explaining."

Then he left the kitchen as quickly as he could without actually looking like he was fleeing.

He was back in his room before he realized that he'd left the ice pack sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. His shoulder had been iced enough, he decided.

He kept forgetting that Tony was a woman now, at least physically. It was so easy, when Tony was in the armor, moving and speaking and fighting exactly the same way he always had, to imagine that nothing had changed.

It shouldn't make a difference; Tony was no more attractive now than he had been before -- if anything, he was slightly better looking as a man than as a woman -- and he was every bit as capable of being Iron Man. And every bit as tightly-wound, every bit as much of a potential loose canon.

It shouldn't make a difference, but it did. Maybe because of the cognitive dissonance of speaking with someone who sounded like -- _was _-- Tony, but no longer looked like him. Maybe because, when he was around this superficially female version of Tony, he found himself halfway expecting his long-standing interest in Tony's body to be returned.

Steve might be able to appreciate men, but relatively few men were capable of returning the favor. Women, on the other hand, were far more likely to return his interest. Which didn't mean that Tony did, since he was, after all, not really a woman, but Steve's subconscious didn't know that.

None of that mattered right now, anyway, not compared to their real problems, like whether it was really a good idea to have Tony on the team. He needed to stay in New York as long as Strange and Wanda were still working to fix him, and it would be a waste of resources to have Iron Man in New York City and _not _call him in for help in a fight, and while Tony had repeatedly stated that he was prepared to find a different place to stay if Steve didn't want him in the Mansion, the Avengers Mansion was Tony's _house_. Kicking Tony out of his own home was not something Steve was prepared to do, even if there had been the remotest chance that Jarvis would have actually let him.

Tony knew he'd screwed up, but still seemed utterly convinced that he had made the right choices -- that he had, in fact, had no other choices -- despite his obvious guilt over Titanium Man's death. Which hadn't really been his fault, if his story about the man's armor malfunctioning was true, and Steve had no reason to believe it wasn't. Accidents happened, in combat. It was why having a superhero who wasn't in full and complete control of his actions was so dangerous.

And if Tony's emotional state a few months ago had been anything like what Steve had seen just now, he _hadn't _been in full control of his actions.

The idea that Tony hadn't been in full control of himself when he had effectively sucker-punched Steve and left him helpless and unable to interfere while he'd gone on to attack a government installation -- against Steve's direct orders, after Steve had all but begged him to reconsider his course of action -- ought to have made Steve feel better. It didn't.

If Tony had snapped before, and for no apparent reason that Steve could decipher, then he could do so again. Hank had, after all, and Hank had been the last person anyone had expected it from. Hank had always been quiet, a little unsure of himself, reserved. Not the kind of person you expected violence from, especially not borderline megalomaniacal super-villain-style violence.

Hank had nearly gotten the entire team killed before he'd snapped out of it. Tony had nearly gotten himself killed before he'd managed to snap out of the drinking.

Steve had heard people claim that men who'd broken or been damaged and healed were stronger in the broken places. It would have been nice if that were true, but he knew from experience that it wasn't. He still had nightmares about explosions and ice and falling when things around him got bad, the way they had recently, and he knew perfectly well that that didn't make him "stronger," anymore than the number Ultron had done on his head had made Hank stronger, or being taken apart and temporarily losing his emotional connection to the rest of them had made Vision stronger.

Surviving trauma and disaster took strength, especially strength of will, but breaking once made people more likely to break again, not less so.

If he only knew why Tony had gone so far over the edge, he might feel better about it, might be able to understand, but he wasn't sure that even Tony knew.

The thump of a fist knocking against his door actually made Steve jump a little. "What is it?" he asked, rising to open the door and desperately hoping that he wouldn't find Tony on the other side of it.

"The news crews are gone," Sam said, as Steve pulled the door open. "And the Wasp says the landscapers are on their way."

Steve nodded. "That's good," he said. "Thanks for-"

"Covering for you?" Sam shrugged. "I figure you've done enough interviews about why you decided to put the costume back on. Plus, any time they get a chance to talk to Captain America, they hang around twice as long as they do for the rest of us."

"Why do they keep asking me about that?" He gave them the same answers every time, the only answers he had. "Do they think my reasons are going to change?"

Sam snorted. "Knowing reporters? Probably. And you're more fun to talk about than the economy. You probably get better ratings, too."

"I shouldn't," Steve muttered, unable to help himself. "The economy is more important."

Sam nodded at Steve's shoulder, and Steve belatedly realized that he was holding his right arm awkwardly, stiff against his side. "Iron Man said you'd gotten hurt," Sam said. "How bad is it?"

Steve shrugged, favoring his sore shoulder. "Just a few bruises. It should be fine in a couple of days." Had Tony actually sent Sam to check up on him?

Sam raised his eyebrows. "I wondered why you were still wearing your costume. Having trouble getting it off?"

"I'll manage."

"Stark said you'd say that." Sam shook his head, and stepped forward into the room, reaching gently for Steve's arm. "He knows you better than I thought. Here, let me see. Where does this thing fasten?

"Right there. If you unhook that part, I can get the rest just fine." His arm didn't want to bend at that kind of an angle without sharp protests. "We were on a team together for a long time," Steve added, as Sam undid the tiny hook and eye fastening and then, without ceremony, nudged his arms upward and yanked the entire top of his costume off. "Before he..."

"Fell apart?" Sam suggested, moving back to let Steve drop his leather and mail tunic on the bed -- and also, Steve suspected, to get a better look at him. "He's got things back together now, though. I know I wouldn't handle being turned into a woman anywhere near that well. And damn, that looks nasty. Did you put ice on it?"

"Yes. I left the ice pack in the kitchen. I don't think it's actually as bad as it looks, though." Nothing was torn, after all, or moving his arm would be infinitely more painful. "It really is just bruises, and I heal from those pretty quickly."

Sam had a point, he reflected. Tony was actually handling the situation far better than Steve had expected, unless he had lost it just now as some form of re-directed stress, which Steve supposed wouldn't be surprising. From the sound of things, SI's board of directors was being less than supportive about the whole thing, and the media was having a gleeful field day with it. Awkwardness aside, it might be a good thing Tony was staying in the Mansion; it was harder for reporters to get access here.

"Someday," Sam was saying, "I will get you to admit that your super soldier serum has a healing factor in it."

"I don't have a healing factor. I just heal quickly." Steve sat down on the edge of the bed, rotating his shoulder carefully. It really would be fine, he decided. Also, he needed a shower before he put civilian clothes on. He smelled like leather, sweat, and grass stains, thanks to all the rolling around on the lawn he'd done. And speaking of the fight earlier,..

"How did you manage to knock Atlas out?" he asked. "I was a little busy at the time."

Sam grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know."

"No, really, how?"

"Well, while you and Iron Man were busy with Hyde, I-"

For the next few minutes, Steve almost managed to forget about Titanium Man, teammates who had suddenly become the wrong gender, and Tony's potential mental state entirely.

ooOOoo

The Adam's annual charity ball was semi-infamous in New York's business world; given the hosts' banking and finance connections, there was often as much quiet not-quite-insider-trading going on at the event as their was fundraising for the American Cancer Society.

Tony had had two tickets to it, one for himself and one for an unspecified and to-be-selected date, for the past two months. He hadn't given the matter of whom he'd be going with much thought; there were always women eager for the chance to accompany Tony Stark out for a night on the town. Some of them were even women whose company he actually enjoyed.

Only one or two of those were women who would actually consider attending a public event with large amounts of media coverage with another women.

"Aren't you going?" he asked Jan plaintively, when the date had begun looming inescapably over him. "Can't I just go with you? Or not at all?"

"I'm recently divorced. If you go with me, the next day's headlines will be shrieking that my marriage ended because I'm secretly a lesbian. Or that you and I were together beforehand, and our torrid affair broke my marriage up." She sighed. "I'd say stay home, but you know better than I do that people are going to see that as a sign of weakness."

They would, of course. Tony was already seen as so much fresh, bloody meat for prospective corporate sharks, with his company barely solvent again and his personal record so very, very shaky. He was getting tired of having to fend off politely worded doubts about SI's viability as a company ever time he turned around, not to mention doubt about his ability to competently oversee it.

Important business was going to be transacted at that party. Deals would be made, information would be exchanged, and prospective business partners would be quietly sounded out. As much business got done in this town over drinks and seemingly casual conversation at parties and on golf courses as ever did in the boardroom. He had already let himself fall out of the loop by not going to the right handful of bars anymore -- to any bars -- or meeting the right people for drinks. He couldn't afford to start missing major social functions on top of it, especially not right now.

Even ones where everyone else would be drinking. And that would require him to wear women's formal attire. Pepper was truly never going to let him live this down.

There had to be somewhere he could get a tuxedo in the right size and cut from; this was New York, after all.

"They're going to see anything I do as a sign of weakness," Tony said. "I can't win here, unless Strange can magically change me back before Saturday."

Jan eyed him with a distinctly assessing gaze, and started to grin in a way that made Tony distinctly uneasy.

"What?"

"I think you should go as a girl," she said.

"I am. That's the problem."

"No, I mean actually as a woman." Her eyes sparkled with a light that was positively gleeful. "Rock the dress and the make-up and the whole nine yards. Take that chauffer of yours as a date, or find some other poor sap who owes you a favor and make him do it."

"Happy's married," Tony objected, pointing out what was only a small fraction of the many, many things terribly wrong with this idea. "And I can't take an employee to this."

Jan snorted. "Since when has that stopped you? You took your secretary to it last year."

"No, I took Indres. I gave Pepper and Happy extra tickets." Pepper was significantly more than just a secretary -- that wasn't even her official job title, and hadn't been for years -- and she needed to be present at events like this every bit as much as Tony did. She was the one who filed in for Tony any time he couldn't be present for something, the one who scheduled pretty much everything around him, the one who knew where the bodies where buried and where the records were filed and who the right person to call to deal with the latest crisis was. Or at least, she had been.

He was pretty sure that if Pepper had been around during the past couple of years, rather than taking a well deserved break, he wouldn't have lost the company and had to scramble to get it back. He was never, ever going to tell her that, though. It would make it sound like he was blaming her for leaving, when all the blame lay squarely on his own shoulders.

Jan waved a hand dismissively. "I'm sure you can find someone. If all else fails, you can ask Cap or the Falcon to do it."

Tony managed not to wince, but it took effort. "Because Steve wants nothing more than to go to a party with me," he said.

"You used to drag him to these things all the time," she continued, relentlessly.

Tony took a deep breath, forcing himself not to think about what it would like to walk into the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton on Steve's arm, to dance with him in public, to be able to pretend, just for an evening, that Steve felt the same way about Tony that Tony did about him.

Tony had given up long ago on the idea of Steve returning his feelings -- by the time he'd realized that what he felt for Captain America was more than just lust for his phenomenally attractive body, Steve had already started his endearingly ineffective pursuit of Sharon Carter -- but part of him couldn't help savoring every touch, every bit of time he got to spend with Steve alone, just the two of them.

These days, of course, he'd thrown away the ability to have even that. Forget sex or romance; he'd settle for just having Steve's friendship back. It had been a little better since that talk in the kitchen -- Steve would actually speak to him about more than just official Avengers business now -- but the trust and friendship that they'd once shared was broken, gone.

It almost hurt to watch Steve joke with the Falcon, trading the same kind of in-jokes and back-and-forth banter he'd once shared with Tony. No, if he were being honest, it did hurt. The Avengers had been his family once, and now he felt shut out of them, and shut out of Steve's life.

"It wouldn't hurt to-"

"Jan," Tony interrupted, keeping his voice level, "do I play the 'two of my friends aren't speaking to one another anymore; I must get them back together' game with you?"

Jan shook her head slowly. "Fine," she said. "I'll drop it. Don't ask Steve."

"It's a moot point anyway, because I'm not going as a woman. The media would eat me alive."

"They're doing that already," Jan pointed out. "Don't talk," she went on, pointing a finger at him, "just listen. You're going to be uncomfortable at this party no matter what, right?"

"Yes," Tony admitted. That much was a given.

"So make everyone else uncomfortable, too. Go on the offensive. You can insert your own sports-related analogy here."

"I played tennis in school," Tony said, and pulled out his SI-manufactured Blackberry-clone. Email. Surely he had some vital red-flagged email from SI's legal council that could rescue him from this conversation. There were at least five ongoing lawsuits involving SI, if you counted the ones where Tony was suing other people as well as the ones where people were suing him; in New York, after all, lawsuits were just another tool one used in order to do business.

His inbox wasn't empty -- it was never empty -- but nothing in it was important enough to actually need his attention. "And ran track," he went on, inanely. "Football metaphors aren't my forte, either."

Jan was sitting forward in her char now, leaning her elbows on her knees. "Half of them will spend at least the first hour of the party too stunned and weirded out to exchange inside trading tips and plot Stark Industries' downfall behind your back, and all it will take is a pair of heels and some eyeliner."

"I'm not putting a pencil that close to my eye."

"I do it every day," she informed him, and then, "Does this mean you're agreeing to the heels?"

"I don't even own any dresses," Tony protested, knowing he was just trying to stave off the inevitable now; when Jan had her mind made up about something, it tended to happen. "I specifically told Pepper not to buy me any."

Jan grinned from ear to ear. "Trust me, that won't be a problem."

ooOOoo

Agreeing to this had been a mistake.

Normally, Tony would have been glad that at least he'd managed talk Rhodey into coming with him and would therefore have someone interesting to talk to, but he was pretty sure that Rhodey had agreed to accompany him solely for the opportunity to laugh at him.

Had it been someone else in his uncomfortable sling-back, two-inch-heel shoes, Tony would have done the same thing.

"You're sure about the eyeliner?" Jan asked.

"Positive," Tony forced out, through gritted teeth. He hated having studio make-up artists poking at his face and messing with his hair every time he had to appear on television for something, and the past twenty minutes had been almost as bad.

Jan had put styling products he hadn't bothered to ask the names of in his hair, somehow transforming his expensive but now slightly-too-long haircut into something that looked cute, feminine, and like he'd had it done on purpose, and attacked his face with brushes and tiny little make-up pads. The resultant coat of make-up was almost invisible, except for the way it made his face look.

He looked... if he hadn't _known _the woman in the mirror was him, he would have turned on the charm and flirted with her.

"You really ought to have earrings, with hair that short," Jan was musing, studying him carefully with the air of an artist evaluating a nearly-complete painting. "It's a little late for that now, though. And the clunky wristwatch comes off."

"It's Swiss," Tony protested. "It cost two thousand dollars. And technically, it's not a watch, it's a chronometer."

"It's also blatantly a man's watch, doesn't actually fit you anymore, and doesn't match the dress. If you really need to know what time it is, you can ask your date." Jan held out her hand imperiously. "You can have it back when you get home."

Tony sighed, and handed over the watch.

"Are you sure about this?" Wanda asked, for what had to be at least the third time. She had watched Jan's transformation of Tony in silence, offering only the occasional comment, but Tony appreciated the gesture of solidarity.

"No," he said again, "but I don't have a choice. I have to go to this and at this point it's too late for me to get a tuxedo in the proper size."

She shook her head. "No, I mean going with Rhodey."

"That's the one part of this that isn't going to suck. He doesn't like these things any more than I do, so after he gets done laughing until he cries at the sight of me in this thing," Tony waved a hand at the little black dress, "I'll at least have someone to talk to. Plus, he won't let me go near the open bar this thing's sure to have." Which was more of a relief than Tony wanted to admit -- he hadn't been looking forward to tonight even before Loki's spell.

Everyone drank at events like this, even if it was only a single glass of champagne. It was just what was done. His total avoidance of alcohol was going to be conspicuous, and considered everything from rude to a glaring sign of weakness that reminded everyone who noticed it that he was an alcoholic.

"No, I mean..." Wanda glanced at Jan and trailed off, twisting her fingers together with unaccustomed nervousness. "I was there in California, Tony. I saw the two of you, before you put the armor back on."

Tony winced, memories he'd been trying to avoid rearing their heads again and bringing guilt with them. "I've apologized for that," he said, studying his shoes -- how was he going to run in these, if something happened? Oh God, he wouldn't be able to bring his briefcase tonight, not in this outfit. Maybe it wasn't too late to back out -- "I... he knows I screwed up, and why I screwed up. We're working things out." They _were_. Everything was going to be fine, and Rhodey would be pleased to see him and no supervillains were going to attack the charity ball.

_"You _apologized?" Wanda's eyebrows rose, and Tony shrugged uneasily, feeling as if he were being judged over something, but not sure what.

"I know apologies can't bring Erwin and Clytemnestra back, or make up for what I put Rhodey through, but it was the only thing I could do."

Erwin and Clytemnesta Morley... both of them dead in explosions, casualties of Tony's stupid, destructive rivalry with Obadiah Stane. Rhodey felt the guilt over their deaths as much as he did, he knew -- he had been the one wearing the armor when Erwin had died, when Tony and Rhodey had both failed to save him.

Cly and Erwin had taken Tony when he'd been nothing but a liability, when they'd had every reason to turn him away, and he'd repaid them with death. Cly had burned to death, like Titanium Man had; he wondered if she had screamed the way he had.

He wasn't going to think about that tonight, especially at a party where he'd be surrounded by alcohol. Tonight was for business, and he had too many people at SI depending on him to be allowed to fuck up.

Tony glanced at the stranger in the mirror again. Jarvis was right; he did look a little bit like his mother. Strange; everyone had always commented on how much like Howard Stark he looked, before.

"I can't stall anymore, can I?" he asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but Jan answered anyway.

"No. War Machine's going to be here any minute, and if the three of us leave now, we'll be just in time to be fashionably late."

"I hate my life," Tony muttered.

"Maybe," Jan said, "but you look really good, and that's all anyone there will see."

Wanda patted him on the shoulder -- his _bare _shoulder, which felt almost like going out in public half naked, which he technically was if you counted his mostly-bare legs -- and said, "Keep your head up and don't listen to anything they say about you."

He'd been able to do that, once. Not since Afghanistan, not really -- he'd lost the ability to not care what people thought of him at some point in those caves, building the armor slowly under Yinsen's watchful gaze -- but before that, no one's opinion had mattered. His father's always had, but his father had died, and the longer Tony spent in charge of SI, dealing with the people Howard Stark had screwed over, the more he realized that his father had been a deeply unpleasant man whose opinions were not necessarily worth respecting.

Even after Afghanistan, he'd been able to fake it, though. And if Tony could hold it together and not appear to be a broken wreck after a near death experience and three months of torture and captivity, then he could do it now.

His determination lasted through the walk downstairs -- Steve, thank God, didn't seem to be around -- Rhodey's arrival and subsequent laughter, and Happy's shocked double-take when he pulled the Aston Martin up in front of the Mansion's front door.

At least he didn't laugh.

"I'm driving," Tony informed Rhodey, reaching for the driver's side door before Rhodey could. He had to take the shoes off to do it, but damn it, he'd surrendered enough of his masculinity tonight as it was. Getting to drive a sports car from a Bond movie through Manhattan was minimal comfort, but at least it was something.

Driving a car, like any other mechanical task, always calmed him down, so that by the time they reached their destination, Tony had almost stopped wanting to cringe at the thought of getting out of the car and walking past the photographers and their cameras.

He could do this. He was Tony Stark, and he had an entire company depending on him and a reputation to uphold.

If he was lucky, maybe none of the reporters would recognize him.

They did, of course.

"Are they always like that?" Rhodey asked, wide-eyed, as the door swung shut behind them. "I don't remember it being that bad, before."

"No. This is significantly worse than normal." It wasn't every day, after all, that a major figure in the business world was magically transformed into a member of the opposite sex. That kind of thing usually required extensive surgery and months spent at a private clinic in Sweden.

"Damn." Rhodey shook his head. "I'm sorry I laughed, okay?"

"Don't be." Tony shrugged. "Everyone does."

Except tonight, rather than laughing, everyone seemed to want to just stare at him. Some of them were people he didn't even know, who couldn't possibly recognize him as Tony Stark and were presumably staring because Jan had insisted on a backless dress. The halter-style top, which fastened around his neck and left his entire back bare to the waist, had been a compromise between her insistence that high necklines were not in style right now and Tony's inability to wear anything low cut without showing off a chest full of shrapnel scars.

The fact that people were checking him out ought to have made him feel uncomfortable, but surprisingly, it actually made Tony feel better. He might be stuck as a woman right now, but at least he could still have the same effect on people that he'd always had.

Hank might not have wanted him, but Hank didn't notice that women other than Jan existed. He never had.

"Rhodes!"

Tony gritted his teeth, his tentative good mood abruptly vanishing.

Morgan.

"I thought you'd gotten tired of playing airline pilot for my cousin," Morgan drawled, smiling cheerfully at Rhodey. His tuxedo was just a fraction too tight, and his cufflinks were large, flashy, and almost certainly Austrian crystal or even cubic zirconium rather than the diamond he clearly wanted people to think they were.

He had an ivory-topped cane in one hand. An affectation, or had someone worked him over for money owed them again?

No, Tony would have heard about that. Morgan always came to him when he was in financial trouble. And if he'd gotten himself into yet more trouble while Tony hadn't been in the picture to bail him out, then that was his own fault, not Tony's.

"I'm a freelancer now," Rhodey said, smiling tightly at Morgan. "Thought I'd try working for myself for a while, being my own boss."

"Well, I'd say it's working out for you." Morgan turned to Tony and held out one perfectly manicured hand. "Morgan Stark. Where ever did Rhodes find someone as delightful as you?" Then, to Rhodey, "I see you haven't introduced us. Afraid I'll steal her away from you?"

Rhodey made a strangled noise, then started to cough.

"It's me, Morgan, you idiot," Tony hissed, through gritted teeth.

Morgan stared at him blankly. "What? No, I'm quite sure I'd remember meeting _you_." He took Tony's right hand in both of his, smiling a familiar, smarmy smile. "Would your date mind if I borrowed you for the next dance?"

"This isn't West Virginia, Morgan. Do you not read the newspapers anymore? Because that would explain why your investments always do so badly."

Morgan dropped his hand, took a step back, and gaped at him. "Tony? Oh My God, is that you?"

"Hello, Morgan," Tony said, giving his cousin a bright, false smile and not bothering to disguise the contempt in his tone; he hadn't bothered to pretend there was any real affection between them since the second time Morgan had lent his assistance to a supervillain trying to kill or discredit Tony. Morgan had displayed a distinct lack of concern when Stane had taken over SI, had in fact fallen all over himself trying to suck up to him.

"You're a girl," Morgan stammered. "I thought that was some kind of hoax."

"Unfortunately not." Tony kept the smile in place with minimal effort; he'd had a lot of practice.

"You're an attractive girl," Morgan went on. "Who'd have expected that, huh? If I didn't know who you were-"

"You'd hit on him," Rhodey interrupted. "Yeah, we got that."

The music playing in the background finally registered, and inspiration struck. "You're required to dance at least one dance at these things," Tony informed Rhodey. "The hosts insist on it. Let's go get it over with."

He took Rhodey by the wrist and nearly dragged him toward the dance floor and away from Morgan's flustered and still faintly leering presence.

ooOOoo

The library was one of the rooms in the house that Steve had always associated with Tony; there had been a lot of nights early in his time with the Avengers when Steve had spent hours very late at night or early in the morning sitting in the library talking to Iron Man. He'd usually been woken by nightmares of the war or the explosion that had killed Bucky and trapped him in the ice; he'd never known what Iron Man's reasons for apparently never sleeping had been.

It wasn't until this evening, when Steve had completely run out of anything to read, that he realized he'd been avoiding the library since Tony had come back. It was something of an embarrassing revelation.

Tony wasn't in the mansion tonight, though -- he was at a party of some kind with Jan and James Rhodes -- so the library should have been empty for Steve to browse for a book to his heart's content without fear of having to make awkward conversation with... anyone.

Except, as it turned out, the library was not empty. Wanda was curled up in one of the oversized leather chairs that predated the Avengers' use of the house and had somehow managed to survive six years of superhero occupancy. She had her nose buried in a copy of _Macbeth._

"Isn't that play supposed to be bad luck?" Steve asked.

"Only if you're an actor," Wanda responded, without looking up. "And anyway, bad luck is my specialty." After a moment, she added, "The witches are the best part. They control or manipulate almost everything that happens in the play."

"I like _Henry V _better," Steve told her, as he started the long walk up and down the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, waiting for something to catch his eye.

"You would." Wanda turned a page in her book, and Steve switched his attention to the book shelves, searching futilely for something he hadn't already read that wasn't an engineering manual. There were hundreds of books in here, from Howard Stark's old tomes on economics to a handful of books in Transian that were either Wanda's or Pietro's, brought with them when they had first joined the team. There was an entire shelf devoted to Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, for Vision, and half a shelf of bright green bound volumes of the American Journal of Biochemistry that had to be Hank's. They ought to send those to the west coast. The extensive collection of studies on arthropods, too, but there was a chance some of those were Scott Lang's.

"Are you actually going to pick a book?" Wanda asked. "Or are you just going to wander back and forth distractingly?"

Steve flushed, and pulled one of Vision's noir stories off the shelf at random, going to sit in the chair opposite Wanda.

"You missed Tony in a dress earlier," she said, just as he asked, "How are the magic lessons going?"

"Strange is a much harder taskmaster than Agatha was, but I think I'm learning more from him." She smiled faintly. "He told me yesterday that I was adequate."

"I take it adequate is good?"

"From Strange? It's practically gushing praise."

That was good, Steve thought. Wanda deserved to have something go well for her, after the last year. First the loss of her children, then her marriage ending, then Immortus's attempt to take over her body... At least she was back, now. He'd been worried when she had briefly joined forces with Magneto that they had lost her. Possession was a hard thing to come back from, and Wanda had already had to do it once before.

"You are... you've been in California for a long time. What's it like being back here again?" He'd almost said 'being back home again,' but managed to catch himself. Not everyone on the team thought of the Mansion as home the way he did.

"Not as different as I thought." She shook her head, a lock of hair falling into her face. "Sometimes it feels like the past few years never even happened. I missed New York," she added. "LA's not the same. It never gets cold there, and all the buildings are too new."

Steve nodded. "I know what you mean." Los Angeles didn't have personality that New York City had, but then, no other place Steve had been did. Of course, he might be biased; New York was home, and always had been.

Wanda sighed, and shoved the wayward piece of hair back behind her ear. "I thought it would be hard getting used to being on a team with Vision again, but..." she trailed off, letting the sentence hang.

"Vision's a coward about you. He always has been." As far as Steve was concerned, being an android was no excuse; Jim Hammond had been an android as well, and probably a less sophisticated model than Vision, and he would never have treated someone he so obviously cared about so coldly. He wouldn't have run away from them, either.

"Someone had to fill in for me and Tony on the west coast," Wanda said, without much conviction.

"Jen was already going. I could have gone, or called in some favors to get one of our auxiliary members to return to full-time status." It wasn't as if the Avengers were lacking connections in the superhero community. This probably wasn't a conversation Wanda really wanted to have, though. Time to change the subject.

"It's been nice having you on the team again. We missed you."

"It's good to be back." Wanda closed her book, keeping a finger between the pages to mark her place. "I was so far away from myself for so long that when I look back at what I was doing, what I was thinking, it doesn't even seem like me. It wasn't all me, I know that now -- some of it was Immortus -- but I think I lost my way before that. First I lost the- the twins, and then Vision, and then I even lost control of my powers." She set the book to one side and pulled her bare feet up onto her chair, tucking one foot under her and wrapping her arms around her knee. "And then Immortus... I know it's not as bad as what happened to Carol, as what Marcus did to her, but it was still a, a kind of violation."

"If there's anything I can do-" Steve started, awkwardly.

"Just being back here helps. I hadn't realized how much I had missed this place. I ought to have come back here before, not gone to Magneto."

"Well, he is your-"

Wanda straightened, eyes narrowing. "He's not my father. He's never been my father, and I should have known better than to go back to him. Lashing out like that made me feel in control, but I wasn't really. He was just using me, the way he did before. And I let him. Again."

"The important thing is that you came back." It was selfish of him to be happy that Wanda was back in the Avengers Mansion, all things considered, but he couldn't help it. Having the Scarlet Witch back on his team put Steve's world one step closer to where it ought to be, where it had been before everything had gone wrong.

"The important thing is that I came back before I seriously hurt someone," Wanda corrected. "Or kill them. Studying magic is a harder way to be in control again, but a better one."

Steve wanted to tell her that he was proud of her, but that would have been patronizing. He was, though. He had known people who had never recovered from a fraction of what Wanda had been through. It was one of the things he loved about his team; no matter what happened to them, they always got back up and kept going.

He couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound trite, so he just stood and crossed the room to her chair, bent down, and hugged her. "I'm just glad you're back," he repeated.

ooOOoo

Rhodey let himself be dragged towards the dance floor; if he'd actually put up any resistance, Tony wouldn't have been able to move him.

He still hadn't gotten used to how much smaller he was -- the loss of body mass was even more disturbing in some ways then the loss of certain body parts. Tony didn't have to look up at people often, aside from Happy and various fellow superheroes. Now, at 5'7", most of the men in the room were taller than him. Or would have been, if he hadn't been wearing heels.

He was starting to suspect that this might be one of the reasons women wore them.

The band was playing a waltz, for which Tony was grateful -- anything more athletic would have put him at serious risk of a twisted ankle, not to mention the fact that trying to remember to let Rhodey lead was difficult enough even at a slow tempo.

"You're doing it again," Rhodey said. "The woman doesn't lead, Tony."

Damn it, he _was _doing it again. Tony deliberately made himself relax and follow Rhodey's movements. "Some of the women I've danced with have."

Rhodey grinned. "That's because some of your exes scare me."

"Are you implying that you weren't man enough for Bethany?"

"Well, you weren't," Rhodey pointed out, without malice. "I'm not sure anyone is. I bet Indres led, too." His hand on Tony's back was big, warm -- like Steve's hand might have been. Tony concentrated on that, and not on his instinctive desire to flinch at the mention of Indres' name.

"Actually, no," he said. "She was a very good dancer. She was very good at everything."

"Including working one truly fucked-up number on your head."

"She didn't say anything to me that wasn't technically true, except for the part about not telling me that she'd been hired by Stane to spy on me." With most of his attention focused on where his feet were, not what he was saying, the words came more easily. Dancing was like sparring, in a way, or driving a car with sensitive steering and tight suspension. He leaned a little closer to Rhodey and concentrated on synchronizing their movements, on the sound of the music, on anything but the memory of Indres' parting words.

"I guess that just slipped her mind."

Tony grinned. Joking about it somehow made it feel, if not less real, then at least more remote, less important. None of the other Avengers were willing to touch any subject involving Stane or alcohol in any way that wasn't dead serious and slightly judgmental.

He and Rhodey had already done the judgmental part, and the screaming at one another part, and the beating each other up part. And then the apologizing part.

"So how's that new car of yours working out?" Tony asked, as the two of them stepped smoothly into a turn. He was getting the hang of this not-leading thing. Another couple songs, and it might not even take effort. "I had doubts about some of the design elements, but I figured you would want the higher horsepower."

Rhodey picked up on the subtext instantly, his face breaking into a grin that showed off even white teeth. "Oh yeah. Come on, I'm a jet pilot. There's no such thing as too much throttle. Plus, that finicky suspension and all those fancy electronic add-ons in your ride weren't my idea of a good time anyway. You practically had to have an engineering degree to operate it. I prefer to put all my attention on the road."

"I'll have to race you sometime." Tony smirked up at him, daring a challenging tone he'd tried very, very hard never to use in California. "I bet I could still beat you, finicky suspension or no."

God, he'd missed this. Steve wouldn't spar with him anymore, wouldn't talk shop with him unless it was directly related to the business at hand. This, this was what he'd needed to feel normal again.

Who'd have expected it to involve a dress and heels?

"Oh, you wish," Rhodey snorted. "I'd blow you out of the sky."

"Is that a challenge?" Tony drawled. "I could make some kind of joke about stamina if you want. Or the part where you just offered to blow me, but I think that might be too easy."

Rhodey's smile faltered, and he shook his head. "I am not prepared for this level of weird," he stated. "Just turn it off, or down, or whatever, okay, Tony?"

Tony blinked, and missed a step, then had to skip sideways to get back into the proper rhythm. "Turn what down?"

"The flirting."

"What flirting?" Tony frowned, suddenly hyper-aware of Rhodey's hand against the bare skin of his back again. Rhodey had always been tall, muscular, strong -- like Steve pathetic part of his mind that could never seem to get over _anything _whispered -- but it was even more obvious now. Dancing with him, standing this close to him, it was impossible not to notice. He hadn't been doing anything with that knowledge, though. He'd gotten over his impulse to flirt with Rhodey months ago, when he'd finally realized that all the stripping nearly naked in front of him and silent invitations in the form of unnecessary touching in the world were not going to make Rhodey interested in him.

It wouldn't have been fair, anyway. Not when he'd already been asking so much of Rhodey. He'd thought, once or twice, that it might be a way to repay Rhodey for everything Tony had put him through, but he was trying to be honest with himself these days, and honesty meant admitting that sex with Rhodey would really have been for Tony's own benefit. He'd wanted comfort, affection, affirmation, wanted to lose himself in someone else's body, and it didn't hurt that Rhodey's body was not only solid and hard with cleanly defined muscle, but also faintly reminiscent of Steve's.

And, damnit, he'd thought he was over this, past holding everyone he was attracted to up to Steve like he was some kind of paragon. Just because he'd been Tony's best friend, just because he was as close to physically perfect as humanly possible, just because he'd been the one to come for Tony when he was at his worst, to try and get through to him...

"What flirting?" Rhodey repeated. "Christ, you don't even realize you're doing it, do you?"

Tony blinked. "Actually, no. Come on, if I were flirting with you it would be intentional and a lot less subtle."

Around them, couples were dancing with varying degrees of skill, most of them middle aged white men and women with blonde hair that was sometimes believable and sometimes not. This was New York, though, so white was far from the only ethnicity present.

He and Rhodey probably looked like a completely normal couple to the rest of the room. If Tony had been his usual self, people would have stared, whispered surreptitiously, never done business with him in quite the same way again.

There were parties in New York where it was totally acceptable to dance with another man, but this had never been one of them.

"For future reference, then?" Rhodey said. "Smiling at people, leaning in towards them and batting your eyelashes looks an awful lot like flirting."

"I'm not acting any differently than I always do." He hadn't been, had he? On the other hand, Rhodey was an attractive guy, so maybe Tony had been flirting. He'd been trying to break the habit in Rhodey's case, but it had been an automatic reflex for a long time.

"Yeah, that's the problem. You always kind of flirt with people. It's what you do. You're going to have to watch that; now that you look like a woman, guys are going to think you mean it."

"I always did mean it, at least with you." Tony batted his eyelashes up at Rhodey, ostentatiously mimicking some of the more vapid woman he'd once dated.

Rhodey made a face. "Don't do that. It's creepy."

"Which part, the part where I'm being honest, or the eyelashes?" The music was winding down, the song coming to an end. Tony stopped moving, and Rhodey stopped with him.

"The eyelashes," he said. "I figured the other part out a while ago. Seriously, don't flirt with me, okay? You're actually pretty hot as a woman, but you know I'm not into men."

"So it's suddenly a problem because I'm hot now?" That made less than no sense.

"This is going to sound really silly, but it's not real. This isn't actually you. The real you is just another guy, and I'm not gonna something that wouldn't be real, or even pretend like we might. After all," he added, serious expression transforming into a smirk, "my mother always said I shouldn't lead women on."

"I hate you," Tony informed him, smiling again in spite of himself. "Just so you know that." Rhodey had a point, actually, and Tony winced inwardly yet again at the way he'd thrown himself at poor Hank.

Life would be much easier if other people weren't so inconveniently binary when it came to sex. Change into a different gender and suddenly no one knew what to do with you anymore.

"This is going to sound terribly rude, but can I borrow your date for the next song?" The voice came from almost immediately behind him, and Tony turned to see an unfamiliar man in his early thirties, a few years older than he was. "You look very, very familiar," he was saying. "Where do I know you from?"

He took a step forward, and Tony, without even thinking about it, found himself taking a corresponding step back, right into Rhodey. He wobbled on the stupid heels, and Rhodey put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

The man reached forward, probably intending to take Tony's arm and steady him. "A little early in the evening to be into the champagne," he said, and Tony suddenly knew, with a deep, visceral knowledge that seemed to come from nowhere, that he didn't want this man to touch him.

"I don't know you," he blurted out. "We've never met."

"Hey," the man held his hands up, palms out, smiling easily, "I was just trying to be friendly."

His smile made Tony's skin crawl; he'd seen it before, he realized. If this man laughed, he knew, he'd be able to recognize the sound. "Go be friendly somewhere else," he snapped, glancing around automatically for his briefcase before remembering uneasily that he didn't have it with him. He jerked away from Rhodey's hand and started to walk, away from the stranger and the dance floor.

What the hell had that been? His heart was pounding, and he felt sick, shaken, and desperately in need of a drink. Where had he known that man from? Why didn't he remember?

"Tony, what the hell? What's wrong?"

Rhodey had caught up with him, just in time for them to reach the table reserved for the two of them and Jan together.

Tony sank down in one of the chairs, and buried his face in his hands, only remembering once it was too late that he was wearing three layers of make-up and that touching it would smear it.

"Are you okay-" Rhodey started, sitting down next to him.

"I don't know," Tony admitted.

A waiter appeared by the table as if by magic, the sign of a very expensive catering service. "Can I get either of you anything?" he asked. "There is an open bar tonight."

"No," Rhodey said, before Tony could answer, and he felt ridiculously and pathetically grateful. "She doesn't want anything."

"Tony?" Jan was hovering by the table now -- figuratively, in this instance, not literally. "What happened? I saw the two of you talking to Harry Saunders. Was he hitting on you?" She shook her head, making a face. "Stay away from him. He's a jackass. He tries to pick up women at parties because nobody can stand to talk to him unless large amounts of alcohol are involved."

And then, with a sickening lurch, Tony remembered where he'd met Saunders -- Harry -- before.

ooOOoo

Steve hadn't read _The Maltese Falcon _since before the war; he'd forgotten how much he disliked it. He'd seen the movie with Humphrey Bogart numerous times over the years, and the memory of Bogart's performance had overshadowed the book until he'd forgotten just how much of a heartless bastard Sam Spade was.

If this was Vision's preferred reading material, then it was no wonder he distrusted his own and other people's emotions. They needed to find him something where the characters didn't all have ulterior motives.

Steve wasn't, he told himself, waiting up until Jan and Tony came back just so that he could be treated to the spectacle of Tony in a dress. That would be immature and petty.

He was going to finish his book, and then he was going to go to bed.

The _Maltese Falcon _wasn't a very long book. Maybe he should go and get _Red Harvest _when he was done with it. Or _the Thin Man_. He'd always preferred Nick and Nora and the Continental Op to Sam Spade, anyway. Or one of Vision's Philip Marlow stories...

The sound of the front door opening was easy to hear from Steve's position in the living room.

"So, that race is still on, right?" Tony. His new voice, hovering between soprano and alto, still didn't sound right to Steve. "After all, you did promise to _blow me _out of the sky."

"Okay, we agreed that the innuendo would stop," Rhodes said.

"You're no fun. You do know that, right?"

"I had a hot woman on each arm tonight," Rhodes returned. "I think I'm plenty of fun."

"For the record," Jan said, "I wasn't actually your date."

"No, but you arrived with him," Tony said. "And that's all anyone's going to remember."

Tony sounded good, normal -- more like himself than Steve had heard him sound in a long time, unless he counted Iron Man's performance in the fight against Masters of Evil. But then, even when he'd been drinking heavily, Tony had usually managed to sound like something like normal. If he hadn't, people would have figured out what was going on sooner.

This time, Steve had decided, he wouldn't be so blind. If Tony snapped again, he would be ready for it.

It was silly, but something inside of him relaxed at the knowledge that Tony and Jan were back safely, despite the fact that charity fund-raisers weren't in the least dangerous. Steve was contemplating abandoning Dashell Hammett and going to bed when he heard the quiet sound of bare feet against the living room's wooden floorboards.

Jan.

Every time she and Hank had returned from some social function, Hank had always come straight into the living room, thrown himself down on a couch, and sighed about how awful it had been to anyone who had been willing to listen. Jan had always followed close behind him, except for the couple of occasions when it truly had been awful, in which case Hank had gone to hide in his lab.

Old habits died hard, apparently.

Steve put his book aside and looked up, about to ask Jan how the evening had gone -- he wouldn't admit it to many people, but he actually enjoyed Jan's descriptions of what everyone had been wearing -- and froze.

It wasn't Jan.

Tony was barefoot, holding a pair of black, strappy shoes in one hand. He -- she? -- was wearing a slinky black dress that fell to just above the knee, its high collar covering his chest but leaving his entire back bare.

He was facing away from Steve, which meant that Steve had a perfect view of said bare back.

How could he have thought that Tony was less attractive as a woman than he'd been as a man? Or not curvaceous enough?

The black dress clung to Tony tightly enough to show off a narrow waist and gently curving hips -- combined with his shoulders, just broad and muscular enough from years of metal working and hand-to-hand training to balance the hips perfectly, the result was a slender hourglass figure that...

Okay, Steve probably couldn't actually fit both hands around Tony's waist, but that didn't mean that the urge to try wasn't there.

Tony collapsed into one of the chairs like a puppet whose strings had been cut, burying his face in his hands with a groan and not seeming to notice Steve's presence. He looked exhausted suddenly, his slumped shoulders making the line of his spine stand out clearly, and Steve felt both vaguely guilty for his prurient thoughts a moment ago and intensely awkward, knowing that he was seeing a moment that Tony believed was private.

There was no way he could slip out without Tony noticing, and it would be better not to even try.

Steve cleared his throat, and Tony's head came up with a startled jerk.

"Steve," he said, surprise clear in his voice.

He was wearing make-up, visibly smudged around the eyes. It looked... strange.

"You look-" Steve started.

"Really stupid?" Tony finished.

"Like someone else," Steve said, lamely. He couldn't quite bring himself to tell Tony that he looked beautiful; he clearly wasn't enjoying his stint as a woman, no matter how well he was handling it, and telling him that would just be rubbing it in.

Tony snorted. "You're not the only one thinks that. We ran into my cousin Morgan at the ball, and he tried to hit on me."

Steve winced. "I'm sorry?" He'd only met Morgan Stark once or twice, and had a vague memory of a stocky man a few years older than Tony, who reminded him of Tony's playboy faНade at its most annoying, with none of Tony's intelligence or charm.

"I don't think I'll ever be clean again," Tony groaned, burying his face in his hands once more. "What's wrong with me anyway, Steve? Why do only creepy people want me? Morgan," he repeated, disgust heavy in his voice. "Norman Osborn will be trying to pick me up next."

"Jan's not creepy," Steve pointed out. "And she apparently wanted you." He was still a little bitter over that, jealous, if he were honest. Even discounting the fact that Tony had entered the relationship under false pretenses, before he'd told Jan that he was Iron Man, and that the ink on Jan's divorce papers had barely been dry... if Tony had had to date a fellow Avenger, a little, selfish voice whispered, why could it have been him?

"Don't rub it in, okay?" Tony said. He sounded tired. "Tonight was bad enough without being reminded over and over that most women don't have any interest in me anymore. Which would be bearable if it weren't for the fact that only the wrong kind of men do."

"And the right kind of men would be better?" That wasn't entirely unexpected, considering that Clint had walked in on him kissing Hank, but it was still something of a surprise to hear Tony come right out and say it. Then again, Tony had never bothered keeping anything about his love life secret.

"Well, obviously, but Rhodey's never been interested, and neither have you, and-"

He must have done a much better job than he'd thought keeping his feelings discrete, Steve thought, and then the implications of Tony's words hit him, and he found himself staring at Tony, mind suddenly blank.

Tony was attracted to him. Tony cared whether or not Steve was interested in him. Tony considered Steve to be "the right kind of man," whatever that meant.

"... and Hank was a really bad idea, but I've always had a weakness for blonds. And for people who would be terrible for me."

Did Tony include Steve in that category? Considering that he'd never made a move on him in all their years of friendship, probably.

"Listen to me," Tony went on, shaking his head. "You'd think I'd be used to this by now."

"Used to what?" Steve had clearly missed something.

"Sorry." Tony started to stand, gathering the discarded shoes up in one hand. "You don't need to hear all about my problems."

"No." Steve held out a hand, and Tony came to a halt a step away from his chair. "Tell me. You used to tell me things like this." Once he said it, he realized that wasn't actually true. Tony had been one of the handful of people whom he could always talk to, but he'd rarely reciprocated. Hell, as far as Steve could tell, Tony never spoke to anyone about his real problems, not the most serious ones, anyway.

It was one of the reasons they hadn't realized how bad his drinking problem was; he'd never asked anyone for help, never mentioned how much of a strain he was under or how much pain he was in. He'd just carried the weight of his problems by himself until it had broken him.

"Tell me," Steve repeated.

Tony shook his head. "It's really not-"

"Sit," Steve interrupted, pointing at the chair Tony had just vacated. "Talk."

Tony dropped obediently back into the chair, then looked irritated with himself.

"You don't actually want to hear the rich businessman whine about how hard his life is," he said. Steve looked at him silently, and he sighed. "Apparently you do." He paused for a moment, then said, "I know people don't want me for myself. I'm not stupid. They want my bank account, or my body. Once they see through the glossy shell and realize what I'm really like, they don't stick around."

"That's not true," Steve objected. "Where on earth did you get an idea like that?"

"It doesn't matter." Tony waved a hand dismissively. "Indres didn't lie about-" he broke off, then said, "It is true, you know it is. Even Jan just wanted a distraction from everything that had happened with Hank. Even if I hadn't told her about being Iron Man, it wouldn't have lasted. She can do better."

"We can all agree that Jan can do better than any of us -- it's not like she hasn't told us so -- but that's not what this conversation is about."

Tony buried his face in his hands again. "Ignore me. I'm just feeling sorry for myself because I had to face things about myself tonight that I didn't want to be reminded of."

So that's what this was actually about. "I know it must be hard, but you got through the party without drinking. You've been sober for months now."

"That doesn't make the consequences go away. Nobody trusts me or my company anymore, not after what Stane did. After what I did. Everyone knows what Tony Stark is like, how easy it is to get what you want out of him if you just use enough alcohol." Tony made a rough, half-laughing sound. "I probably won't even remember it in the morning."

Said in a woman's voice, that sounded much worse than Tony had probably intended it to.

"You're trying now, though," Steve started. "That's the important-"

"Hell, I didn't even remember his name until Jan told me."

Steve blinked. "Whose name?"

"Some guy. I met him at a party, before, when I was drinking. I didn't even remember him until I saw him tonight. He didn't recognize me, either, but he tried to pick me up again, so he must have recognized something about me."

"Pick you up again?" Steve said slowly. He really didn't like where it sounded like this was going.

"Steve," Tony said, quietly. "Don't make me spell out how stupid I was." He looked up again, eyes hollow behind the smeared mascara. "Maybe it wasn't even him. Maybe nothing actually happened, and it's all in my head; hell, I can't even remember. I just know he was there, that night, and-- stop looking at me like that. It's not like anyone did anything to me; I did it all to myself. I'm the one who let myself get that out of control. I'm the one who handed control over my body over to someone else, and before you say anything," he held his hands up, palms out, "yes, I know exactly how lucky I was. Hank gave me the lecture when he ran the blood tests on me."

'Lucky' wasn't the word Steve would have chosen. Someone had used Tony, taken advantage of him. Even, possibly, violated him. If he couldn't remember, there was no way to know whether he had actually agreed to anything that had happened, and he wouldn't have been in any condition to defend himself.

The thought made Steve feel sick to his stomach. "When was this?" he asked quietly. _'Give me his name?' _was what he actually wanted to ask, but Tony was reluctant enough to talk about this as it was, and those details were none of Steve's business.

Tracking the son of a bitch down and making sure he never laid a finger on another human being again would not help Tony now.

"Just before I lost the company."

Just before he completely fell apart. Before he'd vanished off the radar, before Steve had tracked him down to that seedy hotel room where he'd been hell-bent on drinking himself into oblivion, had tried to get through to him and failed.

Maybe the one didn't have anything to do with the other. Steve doubted that, though; it would have been too great a coincidence, Tony going over the edge just days after hitting what had clearly been some kind of personal rock bottom for him.

"It was over a year ago. I don't know why seeing him tonight shook me so much. I ought to be focusing on the positive; apparently it's really easy to talk people into setting up business meetings with you or settling lawsuits out of court when you're wearing a moderately revealing dress." He shook his head, smiling wryly, and it struck Steve once again how different Tony's facial expressions looked without the mustache or goatee to hide or emphasize them. The smile didn't reach his eyes. "I suppose there had to be some consolation for having this done to my body."

When it came to losing control over your own body, being magically transformed into the opposite gender had to rank pretty high up there. Maybe that was why Tony was so bothered by the ridiculous idea that no one wanted him anymore, or that only the 'wrong' people did -- Tony had always been able to seduce people, to charm them, before, but it was clearly important to him to be able to control that attention, to get it only from the people he wanted it from. Sex in this new body would have been some kind of re-affirmation of control, Steve guessed, but only if it was sex Tony deliberately sought out.

Loss of control wasn't something Tony seemed to cope with well -- control over his sexuality, his body, his company, his technology. Over, well, everything.

They should probably be grateful Tony wasn't out there desperately seducing everyone in sight, with the kind of manic, obsessive overkill he'd displayed when trying to get his armor back. Clearly, the loss of his technology was something he'd perceived as an even greater violation than having the integrity of his own body compromised.

But then, Tony had always been funny about his technology. Wanda had said that having control of her powers taken from her bad been like being violated; Tony's armor, his designs, were as much a part of who he was as Wanda's mutation and magic.

He'd been willing forgive Wanda for her reaction to everything that had happened to her, to her own loss of control. Why was Tony different? Was he holding Tony to too high a standard? Wanda to too low a one?

"You're not that different," Steve said, carefully, "not in the ways that matter." Which was both true and not true. Tony could still run SI as a woman, still be Iron Man, still make Steve want to pound his head against the wall in frustration over how hard it was to understand him, still make Steve ache to touch him. And yet, every time Steve looked at him, there was still that half-second of confusion, that need to remind himself that this was _Tony_, not some stranger with his mannerisms and speech patterns. "You look better without all that make-up, though. It doesn't belong on you. The dress either."

Not that Tony didn't look utterly desirable like this -- the dress clung just tightly enough to emphasize all the curves he did have, and the low back revealed a long expanse of smooth skin, dipping inward just below his waist. Steve could imagine drawing that naked back -- the hollow of his spine, the angular lines of his shoulder blades, the curve of ribs narrowing down to the slim waist and then rounded hips flaring out again... pencil or charcoal, to get the shading right. Maybe water colors. He didn't usually do water color, but the delicate wash of tints would be perfect for--

Stop it, Steve told himself. The last thing Tony's going to let you do is use him for figure-drawing practice. Talk about just using someone for their body...

"I feel like I'm wearing a costume," Tony admitted. "Like I'm pretending to be someone else."

Steve stood, holding one hand out to Tony. "Come on," he said. "It's late. You should wash that stuff off and go to bed." He was tired of being angry with Tony, of being suspicious, of waiting for the next meltdown, the next catastrophe.

And maybe, it wasn't just that he was tired of not trusting Tony. He'd had his reasons for taking off his costume and becoming The Captain, but... a lot of things had changed. Maybe it was time to stop waiting for the next betrayal, and start trying to get things back to normal again.

Tony stared up at Steve for a second, confusion in his eyes; then his lips quirked in a little half-smile and he took Steve's hand, letting Steve pull him to his feet. It had never been difficult to manhandle Tony, but it was even easier now; he was a good fifty pounds lighter as well as half a foot shorter.

Steve led Tony into the kitchen and fetched a clean dishtowel out of a drawer, dampening it under the faucet.

"Plain water's not going to get all of this off," Tony said. "Jan doesn't use cheap make-up."

"Probably not," Steve agreed, "but it will take some of it off." He handed the towel to Tony, and watched as Tony proceeded to smear eye shadow and mascara around his eyes until he looked like a raccoon, or possibly one of the teenagers who hung out in the Village -- one of the more interesting things about visiting Dr. Strange's sanctum sanctorum was always the people you saw on your way there.

"Give me that," Steve said after a moment, able to stand it no longer, and took the dishtowel from Tony's fingers. He put a hand under Tony's chin to tilt his face up, and Tony closed his eyes as Steve brushed the wet cloth gently over his eyelids.

Tony stood motionless, his face still under Steve's hands, expression unreadable.

He was right; the dishtowel didn't take all the make-up off. Steve was right, too, though; it did remove most of it.

He pulled the towel away, letting go of Tony's chin, and dropped it on the table. Pieces of hair were hanging in Tony's face; Steve reached up, without thinking, and brushed them out of the way.

Tony, eyes still closed, turned his face into the touch, and Steve realized suddenly how close they were standing. Tony was only inches away. All he had to do was lean down a little and--

He wasn't sure which of them moved first. Probably himself; Tony seemed spellbound by the touch, lips parted slightly and expression serene, waiting.

Tony's lips were soft under his, almost passive. Steve had expected more force, more aggression.

There was nothing passive about the heat building in his body though, or in the way Tony stepped forward a moment later, closing the distance between them and molding himself against Steve, pressing up into the kiss.

The feel of Tony's body pressed against him was like an electric shock, jolting Steve into an awareness of what, exactly, he was doing.

Stepping back from Tony was the last thing he wanted to do, but he made himself do it, trying to will his hardening erection away.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Hmm?" Tony blinked at him, looking dazed, his eyes half-lidded. "Yes you should. For an eighty-year-old man, you kiss really well."

Steve shook his head. "I don't want to be one more person taking advantage of you." He hesitated, then, added, trying to sound like he meant it, "You should go to bed. It's late."

Tony took a step back from him, disappointment visible on his face. "You're not-" he started. Then he fell silent, and turned to go, giving Steve one more torturous glimpse of his pale, naked back, framed by black silk.

Tony paused in the doorway. "It's not taking advantage of me if I want it," he said, without turning around. Then he was gone, leaving Steve alone.

ooOOoo


	3. Chapter 3

_Title_: An Ever Fixed Mark

_Author_: seanchai and elspethdixon

_Rating_: PG-13

_Pairings_/Characters: Steve/Tony, Jan, Hank, Wanda, assorted other Avengers

_Labels_: gender-swap

_Warnings_: This fic deals with pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage.

* * *

**Part Three:**

"Let's focus, people," Tony said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "This isn't a total disaster. It's not a disaster at all unless we let it be one."

"Not a disaster?" Layton's eyes widened, bulging out even further than they normally did and increasing his unfortunate resemblance to a frog. "How would _you _describe losing a two hundred million dollar contract, then, Mr. Stark? Or should that be Ms. Stark?"

'Disaster' actually summed it up pretty well, but you didn't use words like that when talking to banks or stockholders or potential buyers. Tony had been counting on the terrain exploring robots for the Tieri Mining contract forming one of the cornerstones of his attempt to rebuild SI's capital and prestige. SI's designs -- his designs -- had a much lower rate of failure _and _were cheaper to produce. The contract should have been theirs on the basis of quality alone.

_And _they'd submitted the lowest bid, without sacrificing quality or functionality to do so. Tony had worked fourteen-hour days with the engineers on the project for two weeks straight, to ensure that their prototype was ready under budget and before the deadline, despite the fact that they had begun work on the project months -- and in one case, over a year -- after their competitors had.

"We have contingency plans," he said, trying not to let his bitterness show and probably failing. "The Tieri contract was not a guarantee." Except it had been, or should have been. Layton and the others were right to be angry.

"It would have been," Layton said tightly, clearly struggling for composure, "had they not had doubts about our stability and ability to complete the project."

"We're just going to have to prove to people that Stark Industries is as stable as ever."

"Stark Industries hasn't been perceived as stable in over five years," Shooter said. "Not since-"

"My father was alive," Tony interrupted. "I know." Shooter had been on the board for nearly two decades, and had disliked Tony ever since his father had first brought him in to a board meeting, intent on shaming his board members by proving that a six year old had a better grasp of the basic principles of engineering than they did. Howard Stark had never expressed anything like pride in his son, not verbally, anyway, but the fact that he'd been convinced that his six year old son really was more intelligent than an entire boardroom full of adults had to count for something. "We've been producing better designs, better technology, since then, though," Tony said, doing his level best to sound positive, confident. "Everyone acknowledges that. Innovation is what this company is known for. You can't innovate and be 'safe.' Safety in this field is a death sentence."

"A perception of unreliability is a death sentence, especially in the current economy." Layton again, harping on his favorite topic. He'd been an accountant before rising to executive level responsibilities, and profit and loss and balance sheets were near and dear to his heart. Tony might have empathized more if he wasn't always such an irritatingly pompous doomsayer about everything. "There isn't a bank in New York that would loan to us if we needed it," he went on, "or extend any significant amount of credit, not when there's no guarantee who will be in charge of SI in six months."

Tony dropped his eyes to the polished wooden surface of the conference table for a moment, breathing in through his nose and doing his best not to react visibly to the comment. It was true; SI was seen as unreliable, because he was seen as unreliable, and half the men in this room had done their best to block him from resuming control of the company after Stane's death. And without the cashflow from the Tieri contract, credit and liquidity were going to be an issue. The fact that they weren't already was, though it galled Tony to admit it, not actually due to him. You could say a lot of bad things about Stane, starting with the fact that he had been a psychopathic killer, but at least he hadn't run Tony's company into debt.

"That's not the issue at hand," Tony said, looking Layton straight in the eyes. "The issue at hand is how we're going to pursue other avenues of funding, and other sources of income. The ebook reader has generated a lot of media buzz, but it's not going to be a major source of revenue the way the Starkphone is."

Ms. Grant, the only woman on the board and disappointingly impervious to Tony's charm, stared coolly at him. "If your bodyguard hadn't gone out of his way to alienate Colonel Fury, we would still have our role as major technology supplier to SHIELD to fall back on."

Tony forced down the impulse to snap that he didn't want Fury's business anyway. Not now that he knew how little he could trust the man. Fury knew, better than most people, why Tony didn't want his armor in anyone else's hands, how dangerous it was. "Iron Man is aware of that," he said. "That particular bodyguard has been fired and replaced. Wishing that our problems didn't exist doesn't help anyone. We have to move forward, not dwell on previous mistakes. SHIELD is still involved in several patent lawsuits with SI, which would make a business relationship extremely," Tony paused, searching for a word that would not raise eyebrows in polite company, "awkward. If the judge rules in our favor, SHIELD will have to compensate us for their unauthorized use of Stark designs."

"SHIELD took possession of salvaged technology from your bodyguard's armor, which you've always refused to sell. Perhaps if we made it legally available-"

Grant interrupted Layton, cutting him off mid-sentence. "If we did, the US Government would swoop in and take over the program. Or do you really think Senator Byrd's given up on that?"

Byrd. At least there was someone out there whose pursuit of Tony's armor was open, above-board, and well-intentioned. Tony and the senior senator for Virginia had a mutual respect for one another that made clashes with him, if not pleasant, at least endurable. At least, Byrd had respected Tony. God knew what he thought of him now.

It was ridiculous to feel as if he'd let the older man down when they barely knew one another, but Tony still felt an uncomfortable sense of shame when he thought about Byrd's probable opinion of his descent into drunken uselessness. Byrd had been one of the few people in either business or in Washington who had taken Tony seriously from the beginning. "He'll still be trying to get Iron Man to work for the government when they force him to retire thirty years from now. Iron Man's armor has never been for sale, gentlemen. That's not negotiable."

Grant adjusted her glasses and consulted the sheaf of papers on the table before her, the gesture almost certainly for show. "The reports from the scientific division on the green energy project are promising. If we allocate more resources to the project and foreground it, the media buzz should be positive, as should the investor reactions. Alternatives to fossil fuels aren't as much of a concern right now as they were this time last year, but there's still a lot of interest."

"And several nice government incentives for pursuing them," Tony said, nodding. He could see where Grant was going with this; playing a major role in the development of alternative fuel sources would be a nice in with the new administration, provided the president lived up to his campaign promises about supporting scientific progress. And anything that let them do part of their research on the government's dime was good for the companies finances in both the short and long term, provided they could produce results.

Layton, of course, was still frowning. Tony had never seen him do anything _but _frown. "The project is still in development, though. It could be a year before we see any salable results."

"And in the meantime," Tony said, smiling for all he was worth and resisting the urge to gaze at Layton through his eyelashes just in case that might help, "we get the tax breaks just for researching it."

ooOOoo

Steve swayed backwards, easily evading Tony's right hook, then followed up with a swing at Tony's jaw that Tony just barely managed to block with his left forearm.

Tony had been landing fewer blows than usual, though his defense hadn't suffered as much from lack of practice as Steve had expected. Before his transformation, Tony had been barely two inches shorter than Steve, his reach nearly identical. Now, he was half a foot shorter than he had been, and he still hadn't learned to compensate properly for the loss in both reach and mass.

In the armor, as he'd demonstrated more than once since returning to New York, that didn't matter, but he couldn't always rely on the armor.

"You need to get in closer," Steve told him. "It will keep me from using the fact that I have a longer reach against you."

Tony's eyes narrowed, and he backed up a step, fists at the ready. "If I close with you, you'll just use the _hundred pounds _of mass you have on me to pin me to the floor. Getting close enough for you to grab me would make this a very short fight."

Steve had always been able to beat Tony in unarmed combat, but previously, Steve's only real advantage had been skill and training. It hadn't exactly been a fair fight, but it had been close to one. He hadn't truly thought about the difference Tony's new smaller size would make, or rather, he had thought about it, but only in terms of how it would affect Tony's fighting abilities, not how much easier it would make it for Steve to seriously hurt him.

He was going to have to be careful, Steve realized. Hold back just a little, the way he did when he trained with Wanda.

Steve threw a jab at Tony's shoulder, being careful not to put his full weight behind it. Tony spun sideways, just managing to dodge the blow, and landed a punch against Steve's ribs.

Grabbing him by the wrist, yanking him forward, and throwing him over Steve's hip and onto the mat was as easy as breathing. And also, Steve thought with a wince, as Tony climbed to his feet again, not exactly pulling his punches.

There was a hint of jerkiness in Tony's movements as he resumed his feet, a tenseness through his shoulders; despite Steve's hopes, he didn't look any more relaxed than he had when he'd returned from SI's offices. Steve hadn't asked, but he assumed today's board meeting had gone badly.

Offering to spar with Tony had been a spur of the moment decision, motivated as much by a selfish desire to regain one more piece of normalcy as the hope that it would help Tony blow off steam and relax the way it always did for Steve. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working. Tony visibly seethed every time he forgot to compensate for his altered center of gravity or smaller size, clearly angry with himself for the failure.

Over the next few minutes, Tony over-balanced several times and failed to land at least two blows that he should have easily pulled off, growing more irritated each time. He might be learning to deal with his transformation in day to day life -- mostly by ignoring it and acting as if everything were exactly as it had been, silently challenging everyone around him to do the same -- but in a fight, he clearly fell back on old habits and familiar moves. That could be dangerous.

"You need to relearn the way your body moves," Steve said, blocking a kick from Tony and jabbing an elbow into his ribs, slightly less forcefully than he normally would have. "You can't just go on memory. Pay attention to how every move feels; if it's awkward to do, it's not going to work as well as it did before."

"I'd like to see you relearn how to do everything," Tony challenged, blocking Steve's right cross and throwing several quick jabs at him with his left hand. Tony's left-handedness was one of the things that always made fighting him a useful challenge in addition to fun, and that hadn't changed.

"I did," Steve said, swaying backwards to let Tony's next punch sail harmlessly past his face. "After they gave me the super-soldier serum, I spent a month tripping over my own feet and breaking things."

Tony smirked. "Steve, you still do that."

"Not in combat."

Tony's smirk got broader, and Steve went on the attack, sweeping his feet out from under him with one well-placed kick. This time, Tony was ready for it, and hit the mat on his shoulder, rolling and coming up to one knee, then planting his hands against the mat and shoving himself back to his feet again.

His hair was damp, strands of it sticking to his neck and face, and a sheen of sweat glistened on his skin. The sports bra and undershirt he was wearing left his arms bare, so Steve had ample opportunity to notice that while Tony might have lost some mass, he had lost nothing in terms of muscle definition.

For a moment, he could see the gently curving lines of Tony's naked back again, pale and smooth against the dark fabric of that stupid dress, remembered how Ton's body had felt against his. How he had tasted.

Tony's eyebrows drew together, his smirk gone now. "You're going easy on me, aren't you?"

Steve blinked, and his attempt to slip sideways and let Tony's left-handed jab slide past him yet again did not quite succeed. "No?" he said, absorbing the blow and squaring off to deliver a few more of his own.

"Stop it," Tony said flatly. "Would you pull your punches with Diamondback?"

"Rachel's a professional enforcer," Steve objected. "She does this for a living."

Tony's stance was a perfect mirror image of Steve's, leading with his right foot instead of his left, in classic southpaw fashion. "So it's because I'm an amateur," he snapped, "not because I'm a girl. Interesting how you never went easy on me before."

Okay, so perhaps Tony had a point, but... "You're a lot smaller than you used to be."

Tony dropped his guard, lowering his fists, and actually rolled his eyes. "Yes," he said. "Now you have a hundred pounds of muscle mass on me, instead of just fifty pounds. Come on, you've always been stronger, faster, and better than me at this, and you always will be. It's not like the ability to kill me with your bare hands is something you've only just now acquired."

"Well, yes, but-" Steve spluttered. When Tony put it that way, it made him sound like some kind of killing machine.

Tony's foot shot up and caught him right on the chin, hard.

Steve staggered back a step, stunned not just by the force of the impact, but the fact that Tony had done it at all; he'd never been able to kick his foot directly upright as high as his head before. Steve had tried to teach him that move before, without any real success.

Tony hit him in a classic football tackle, his entire bodyweight colliding with Steve's ribs, and the two of them went crashing to the mat, Steve too off-balance to prevent it.

"I've always wanted to be able to do that," Tony said, sitting across Steve's hips and smirking down at him. "You're right; it is fun." Then his eyes narrowed. "Did you let me do that on purpose?" he demanded, leaning forward menacingly and setting one arm across Steve's throat.

Tony weighed barely anything; Steve could have thrown him off easily. He didn't, though he knew he ought to. Tony's weight was resting directly on top of Steve's groin, probably not by accident, and the position had the possibility to become very interesting, very quickly.

"Did you?" Tony repeated, leaning forward and letting a little more of his weight press against Steve's throat. It made his hips shift in interesting ways.

"No," Steve said, thrusting his hips upward and to the side to throw Tony off of him, and rolling to pin him to the ground in a knee-on-stomach hold. "I didn't. You surprised me."

Tony made no move to escape, not that he could have from this position given how much of a weight advantage Steve had. He was panting slightly; with his knee planted on Tony's chest, Steve could feel the motion of his ribs with every breath.

On second thought, Tony pinned underneath him, panting, his lips parted and his skin streaked with sweat was not actually any better than Tony straddling him. It didn't help that Tony was acting more like his old self than Steve had seen in over a year; not just the way he had before the transformation, but the way he had before the serious drinking had started, before the bizarre lashing out of the armor wars. It was as if Steve had suddenly been given his best friend back.

Except that when he planted one hand on Tony's chest to pin his shoulder blades more firmly to the ground, he could feel the soft swell of Tony's right breast under his palm. That was... not like before. The sports bra must not be made of very thick fabric, because Steve could actually feel Tony's nipple hardening through it.

Pulling his hand back and shifting his weight off of Tony's chest wasn't something Steve consciously planned on doing; it just sort of happened. Then Tony was lunging up at him, and Steve had a split second to wonder what on earth kind of wrestling move this was before Tony was kissing him, fingers digging into his shoulders.

The kiss the other night had been gentle, tentative. This was nothing like that.

It was openmouthed, all teeth and tongue and desperation, Tony's hands gripping his shoulders so tightly that it hurt. He'd always wondered what kissing Tony would be like, mostly in terms of wondering what the moustache and goatee would feel like against his face. It turned out that kissing Tony was a lot like sparring with him -- both of them gave it their all and Steve forgot, once again, to hold back.

Tony pulled back, and with the kiss broken, Steve could once again think about what a bad idea this was. Tony was vulnerable right now, not himself, potentially unstable... and currently pulling Steve's shirt up over his head and running his hands over Steve's naked back and stomach.

Steve shivered under the touch, and found himself leaning forward and reaching for Tony before reason intervened. "We shouldn't do this," he said. "I said I didn't want to take advantage of you and I meant it."

"I'm not really sure it's possible for me to come on to you more obviously than this, Steve, short of climbing into bed with you in the middle of the night, completely naked." Tony stripped the undershirt off and threw it to one side, leaving him in nothing but shorts and a black sports bra that didn't completely hide his scars. It was impossible, like this, to ignore the fact that his body was inarguably female, just as it had been the other night when he'd walked into the living room in that dress.

It should have been strange, off-putting, to have him be at once so obviously Tony and so clearly _not male. _It definitely shouldn't have been sexy.

Tony wrapped himself around Steve in a modified version of a submission hold -- had his left arm been a few inches higher, he would have had Steve in a choke hold -- and pressed open-mouthed kisses against the junction of his neck and shoulder, sucking just hard enough to make Steve writhe, but not hard enough that it would leave a mark.

Steve closed his eyes and drew a deep breath in through his nose. "Tony, I-- I don't want to just be one more round of casual sex for you, while you regain control over... something..."

Tony let go of Steve and pulled back, looking him directly in the eye. His eyes, at least, hadn't changed. They were still the same shade of grayish blue they had always been. "Steve," he said, voice low and husky, "nothing with you could be casual."

He reached up to cup the side of Steve's face, leaning in until their lips were only inches apart and _staring _at Steve with the single-minded focus Steve had previously seen him give to complex mechanical problems and fanatical quests to get his stolen armor back. "Doing this with you almost makes being a woman worth it," he breathed, and leaned forward those last few inches to kiss Steve again.

"You're my friend, Tony," Steve said, turning his face to the side to dodge the kiss. He could smell Tony's sweat, not unpleasant, but _different _than before. He smelled like a woman. But then, what else would he smell like? "I don't want to lose that, not after just barely salvaging our relationship from... everything."

"You won't," Tony said. His pupils were huge and dark, making his eyes look grey. This close, Steve could almost count his lashes. "Please, Steve." His voice went low on Steve's name, breathy and needy in a way that made Steve's groin throb.

"I don't do casual sex with women -- with people." Steve ran one hand up Tony's back, hooking his fingers under the elastic of the sports bra and pulling it upward. Tony raised his arms, letting Steve pulled the bra up and over his head, revealing two small, round breasts. They were pale, with hard, dark nipples, the skin between them a spider web of scar tissue -- the same familiar ragged mess of scars Steve had seen before when sparring with Tony, and that one, memorable time when a supervillain had made his armor disintegrate. Proof, if he needed any more, that this was really Tony, was the same person who'd been his friend for years. The same person he'd wanted for years. "It didn't work with Rachel," he went on, knowing he was babbling, a she traced the line of one scar with a fingertip, following it outward from Tony's heart over the curve of his breast to where it ended, just above the nipple. It was slightly different in texture from the soft skin surrounding it, and paler, the end of the scar partially bisecting the dark aureole. "I'm not good at it. Sex means something, Tony. We can't just-"

"Of course it does," Tony interrupted. "You're you. Always so chivalrous; it's one of the things I like about you."

"I want to do this," Steve told him. "I do, but-"

Tony reached for the side of his face again, turning Steve's head slightly to force Steve to meet his eyes. "I don't want sex, Steve. Okay, I do, but-" he broke off, glancing away, then said, fiercely. "I want you. Specifically. Right here and right now, but not _just _here and now."

"Oh," Steve said, very quietly. "I've never done this with a guy before," he confessed.

Tony crawled forward, moving with an easy grace he hadn't displayed while sparring, until he was straddling Steve's thighs once more. He picked up Steve's hand and settled it back over his breast, breath catching as Steve automatically rubbed a thumb over his nipple. "Does this feel male to you?" he asked.

"No," Steve said, and bent to see if his mouth on Tony's breast would get a similar reaction.

ooOOoo

It had been a long time, Steve reflected, since he'd allowed himself a day off from being a superhero, to just go and do something normal. It had been even longer since he'd been able to do that with Tony.

The last time they had met in a casual setting, out of costume and not on Avengers business, had been in a dinner in California, where Steve had tried unsuccessfully to convince Tony to abandon his obsessive and self-destructive attempt to reclaim his stolen technology. Since then, they hadn't interacted unless the team required it.

Well, until the day before yesterday, in the gym. That had definitely been interaction, and it hadn't been Avengers-related. Neither had his conversation with Tony after the party, or the sparring, really. Teaching Tony hand-to-hand combat had always been something between Steve and Tony Stark, not between Captain America and Iron Man.

They were just beginning to rebuild their friendship. Steve really hoped sex wouldn't get in the way of that; as good as the sex had been -- and it had been very good -- he wouldn't trade Tony's friendship for it.

Cornering Tony in his lab last night to talk about things had ended up turning into yet another round of passionate sex, and while post-coital snuggling on the floor of Tony's lab had been nice, Steve wasn't sure it counted as talking about their relationship. So he'd asked Tony to come with him to a photography exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, where nothing untoward could happen.

Hopefully, he could work up the nerve to actually broach the subject before they left the museum.

MoMA had the same high ceilings, white walls, and pale floors that every modern museum seemed to have. Tony, back in the same masculine business attire he always wore and looking as if slinky black dresses, heels, and make-up were something that had never crossed his mind, was staring around the lobby with a bemused expression. "You know," he said, "I think this is the first time in five years that I've been here during normal visiting hours. I usually come here for fund raisers."

"Well, I hope it's still interesting even without the hors d'oeuvres and women in fancy dresses." Steve had been dragged to more than one of those fund raisers, before Tony had started drinking. Tony had always claimed that he needed someone with him who could talk about art, so that he wouldn't look like a clueless engineer who didn't know anything about culture, or that Captain America's presence at a particular benefit dinner would ensure a better turn out. There were always hors d'oeuvres, the tinier the better, and women dressed as if they were ready to attend the opera.

Tony made a face. "Trust me, fancy dresses have lost their appeal."

"I thought you looked very pretty," Steve said sweetly, smirking down at Tony. Now that Tony was no longer actually _wearing _a little black dress, and no longer visibly exhausted and depressed, making fun of him didn't feel cruel.

Tony raised his eyebrows. "I'd like to see you wear heels."

Steve grinned. "I have, actually. I went undercover as a women a couple of times during the war."

Tony stared at him, the amusingly flabbergasted expression on his face more than worth surrendering a few blackmail-worthy details about Steve's past. "A six foot, three inch tall woman. And people actually fell for that?"

Steve shrugged. "Some women are very tall."

Tony failed to look convinced. "It's not just the height. It's the build, and the bone structure, and... trust me, I'm very familiar with the differences between men and women at this point. You would make an extremely unconvincing drag queen."

Steve resisted the impulse to protest that he would make a very convincing drag queen, realizing just in time how silly that would sound. "Bucky and I were never caught," he said, instead. "Okay, we were frequently caught, but not because people saw through our disguises."

"They were probably just too polite to say anything," Tony told him, smirking. He put one hand on the small of Steve's back, steering him toward the banner that proclaimed _"Into the Sunset: Photography's Images of the American West," _in brightly colored letters. "Come on; Ansel Adams awaits."

"Ansel Adams is not the only famous landscape photographer to take pictures of the American West," Steve said primly.

"He's just the only one people have ever heard of." Tony grinned at him, so close that Steve could feel his body heat. The close physical proximity wasn't anything new, but now it felt different, intimate in a way it hadn't been before. Or maybe it had been, and he'd just never noticed.

"Is that the Marlboro Man?" Tony pointed at the first picture, a color-saturated portrait of a cowboy. "Is that supposed to be sincere, or a post-modernist commentary?"

"I'm not sure," Steve admitted. "I think this is supposed to be an examination of how photography shaped American conceptions of the West, so it could be either."

"Oh," Tony said. "One of those exhibits."

"I could be dragging you through the abstract art hall. Don't complain."

Tony grumbled something under his breath, but it was clearly a token protest. In the end, Steve was pretty sure Tony enjoyed the photography exhibit, too. He had something to say about all of the pictures, even if it was only to make fun of them, one hand on either Steve's back or his arm the whole time, and kept smiling up at him. When had Tony smiling -- a real smile, not a fake one for cameras -- become unusual?

"Anything else you want to see as long as we're here?" Steve asked, as they left the exhibit, sliding an arm around Tony's waist, quietly reveling in the way Tony leaned into him. He'd missed this, too; Rachel was an incredibly passionate woman, but she wasn't much for simple displays of affection.

Several feet away, a woman with two children in tow was looking at them. Steve met her eyes, and realized as he did so that he was standing there, in public, with his arm around Tony in a way that left no doubt as to the nature of their relationship.

Steve froze. Putting an arm around Tony had felt so natural; he hadn't stopped to think about what he was doing, what he was revealing.

The woman gave him a harried smile, and turned to pull one of her children away from a piece of sculpture. "No, sweetie. Don't touch that."

Steve relaxed, feeling silly. There wasn't any reason for worry or caution; as far as anyone else in the museum knew, Tony was a woman. If Steve wanted to put an arm around him in public, or even kiss him in the museum lobby, in front of god and everyone, no one would raise an eyebrow.

"The Jackson Pollock paintings," Tony announced. "I think MoMA outbid me for one of them a few years ago."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "I thought you didn't like non-representational art."

"Jackson Pollock's paintings aren't supposed to mean anything or be some kind of incomprehensible political statement. That's the whole point. Plus, he did interesting things with fluid dynamics."

Steve couldn't help smiling at that. Of course there was an engineering-related reason Tony liked them. "Art can be a powerful political tool," he pointed out, steering Tony around a group of tourists who were standing in an amorphous huddle in the middle of the hallway. By the slant of the light coming in through the windows, it was already past noon, and early afternoon on a Saturday seemed to be most people's favorite time to visit museums; the building wasn't exactly crowded, but there was a steady stream of people milling around. Steve had been in here before, on weekdays, and seen nobody but a few security guards, and a scattering of art students from Cooper Union.

Tony snorted. "Not when it's people gluing baby dolls to trashcans and claiming it represents something deep and meaningful."

"That's not real art. Not unless they made the doll themselves or painted something on the trashcan. Art should create something." It was old fashioned, Steve knew, but art should be about more than just shock value or being confusing for the sake of being confusing. It was supposed to communicate something to people, or, failing that, be aesthetically pleasing.

"I'm allowed to not get avant garde art," Tony said, gesturing expansively at the museum around them with the arm that wasn't wrapped around Steve's waist. "I'm just an engineer. You're supposed to be sensitive and artistic."

"Good art should be accessible to the average person. If it's a form of social protest, people should be able to understand what you're using it to say without needing you to explain it to them." He sounded really pompous, didn't he, Steve thought, wincing a little.

Tony's lips curved in a familiar little half-smirk. "When you were a teenager, you wanted to grow up to paint WPA murals, didn't you?"

"Yes," Steve said. "After you get done staring enviously at the painting you almost bought," he added, "where do you want to go eat?"

"I'm taking you to the Modern," Tony told him, as if it had already been discussed and decided upon.

Steve winced. The museum's two-star gourmet restaurant was undoubtedly very nice, but it didn't match the low-key afternoon together that he'd had planned. "It's ridiculously over-priced," he pointed out.

Tony shrugged, grinning up at him disarmingly. "So? I'm paying. I always pay for my dates."

"Date?" Steve repeated.

"Just because I look like a girl doesn't mean I'm going to let you treat me like one," Tony went on. "Come on, let me keep at least a little masculine pride."

Date? Tony considered this a date? Steve hadn't thought about it in so many words, but... maybe it was. It wasn't anything the two of them hadn't done together before, but they hadn't been sleeping together before, either, and that bit on context changed everything.

If Tony had assumed that Steve's request that he come with him to the photography exhibit had been Steve asking him out on a date, then the fact that he had come meant that he did want the two of them to have a real relationship. That, in fact, he assumed they'd already started one.

"So, as far as dates go, how has this one been so far?" he asked, trying for a casual, joking tone.

"No one has tried to kill either of us yet," Tony said, with that infuriatingly sexy little smirk; Steve wasn't fooling anyone, apparently. "Or attacked the museum. So I think we can consider it a success."

ooOOoo

It had been so long since a business meeting had gone well that Tony had almost forgotten what the combination of relief and smug satisfaction it always engendered felt like. He hadn't even realized how much stress he'd been under until the meeting was successfully over with, and he'd actually felt sick from the overwhelming relief.

Stark Industries' green energy research was now going to be carried out in partnership with the Department of Energy, with half the project's funding being provided by the American tax payer. The government officials he'd been meeting with had been men he'd never seen before -- not surprising, since for the first time, he hadn't been dealing with the DoD -- and so they had been able to get directly to the business of the meeting, without having to spend a good fifteen minutes on the ever-popular topic of "oh my God, you really have been turned into a girl!" first. One of the Department of Energy scientists, whom Tony suspected hadn't been exposed to any media other than technical journals in years, had even called him "Ms. Stark."

It had been a hard sell -- federal budget concerns being what they were, the government wasn't going to fund SI's work unless they were satisfied that they might actually get useful results out of it -- but once Tony had realized that the senior official was flirting with him, he'd known how to pitch the project. Lean forward a little, lower his voice to create a sense of intimacy and make it seem as if he were talking directly to the man, smile. Nothing that would make it obvious to everyone else in the room -- under normal circumstances, flirting with a male prospective investor was just as likely to alienate half the rest of the room as work in his favor -- but enough that the other man's interest in what Tony was saying increased perceptibly.

He'd always tried to use charm to turn business negotiations to his advantage, even in the very early days when he'd still been figuring out how to do it successfully -- eye contact was key, but it had taken a while before he stopped having to remind himself of that -- but somehow, it had felt slightly uncomfortable this time, in a way it never had before.

SI would have been desperate without this deal, though, so Tony had shoved his unease to the back of his mind, smiled across the table at his audience, and done his level best to make explaining the data on various powerpoint graphs and spreadsheets sound vaguely dirty. He'd discovered long ago that anything could sound suggestive if you said it with the right intonation.

"Do you want tips on the best way to flutter your eyelashes?" Pepper asked him now, voice completely deadpan. "You know, for next time."

"That would be completely unprofessional, Ms. Hogan," Tony told her.

Pepper raised an eyebrow. "So we're going to be professional now? I suppose I should give you the message Captain America left for you later, then."

"Steve left me a message?" The disproportionate swell of pleasure he felt at the idea was silly, he knew, but even having Steve's friendship back was still enough to make him want to grin uncontrollably, and now... Tony had thought their friendship had been destroyed for good, had never expected Steve to so much as exchange the time of day with him again, let alone forgive him or understand why he had done the things he had, and while he was pretty sure that Steve still didn't understand, he was going to assume that the sex meant that he was forgiven.

Thinking about Steve and sex in the same sentence was never going to get old, especially not now that he had first hand experience in the matter. It turned out that a female body had a few advantages to it after all, especially when your partner had super-soldier-serum-enhanced endurance and a recovery period that would have had Tony seething with envy if he weren't currently benefiting from it.

Pepper pointedly looked away from him, examining her wafer-thin black PDA as if whatever was written on it was vastly more interesting than Tony's love life. "Given that it has nothing to do with company business, giving it to you now wouldn't be very professional, would it, Mr. Stark?"

"It's from Steve. How unprofessional could it be?" Especially compared to some of the messages previous dates had occasionally left for him. While anything could sound suggestive if read in the right voice, Pepper had developed a finely honed skill for making the most lurid and salacious of messages sound utterly devoid of interest or appeal, generally by reading them in a tone of extreme boredom. Tony had asked her, once, how she did it with a straight face, and she had smiled and said, dryly, "Constant practice."

He gave Pepper his best puppy dog eyes, and she relented. "He says that dinner is at seven, and he'll meet you at the restaurant."

"Seven? I don't leave work until seven fifteen."

"I think this may be a subtle message that normal people work from nine to five, not eight to seven, and you should consider leaving earlier today." Pepper was examining the PDA again, but Tony could hear a faint hint of satisfaction in her voice, and wondered who's idea the early reservations had actually been.

"So, when are you and Happy's dinner reservations?" he asked.

"Six-forty-five." Pepper shut the PDA off and tossed it onto her desk, which was spotlessly neat in comparison with Tony's own mess of forms, papers, blueprints, and empty coffee mugs. There was brightly colored paperweight shaped like a flamingo that Tony knew had been a gift from Happy sitting alone on the desk's far corner, in its own little quarantine of tastelessness, at odd with the somber black of her blotter, keyboard, and computer monitor.

Tony checked his watch. It was a quarter to six, which meant that if he wanted to be out of the building in time to meet Steve in Manhattan at seven, he would have to leave pretty much immediately. And so would Pepper. "How long were you going to make me wait before you told me that I was about to be late?" he asked.

"It's written in your computer's appointment book, if you check," she said. "And I sent you an email."

Which, translated, meant, 'Had you not specifically asked me what Steve said, I would, indeed, have deliberately let you be late just to teach you a lesson about checking your messages.'

"Most of the emails I get are spam," he protested. "I can't believe the lawyers want me to keep them all. The girl in records management said that ninety-five percent of email is worthless and I didn't have to keep all of it."

"Yes, but the lawyers are afraid of what terrible legal or public relations disaster you might commit next."

SI's legal department, Tony reflected, were a lot like the company's board of executives in that way. He wasn't, however, going to let the board spoil his good mood over today's victory. The company wasn't going to go bankrupt, and he was about to leave early for dinner with Steve.

He dumped the stack of forms the DoE guys had left for him to look over in his inbox -- the lawyers could look at them tomorrow -- and stood. Sound went distant for a moment, and the edges of his vision blurred.

Tony planted his hands on his desk and braced himself until the moment of dizziness passed. When he looked up again, Pepper was frowning at him with slightly annoyed-looking concern.

"Did you eat lunch today, Tony? Or breakfast?"

"I had..." He'd eaten something that morning, hadn't he? "A muffin. With my coffee."

"I know. I left it on your desk. Did you eat anything else?"

"Maybe?" Tony guessed. "I was busy."

Pepper shook her head, clearly dismissing him as hopeless. "Go have dinner with your boyfriend."

Tony ought to have objected to the term boyfriend, given that it made it sound as if he actually were a woman, but all he could do was grin.

He made it to the restaurant with two minutes to spare, mostly by doing things to his Aston Martin that Happy wasn't going to be pleased with -- such as leaving it parked on the street. It wasn't as if anyone could successfully steal it, not with the number of tracking chips planted it in, or the electrified door locks that would shock anyone who tried to force them.

Wiring things to zap would-be thieves had worked with Tony's possessions at boarding school, and it worked with cars now.

Steve was already there, of course. He'd probably taken the subway, which at this time of day was often faster than trying to drive.

The restaurant wasn't quite as expensive as Tony would have chosen, but it was nice enough that Steve was wearing a suit, something he didn't do very often. It was a very expensive suit -- Tony recognized it as one of Jan's designs, which meant it had been a gift and Steve had no clue how much it cost -- but Steve still looked a little bit like mob muscle. The width of his shoulders and his general air of "I wish I were wearing a uniform instead of something with cufflinks" ensured that.

"I see Pepper managed to get you out the door in time," Steve said, grinning at him. "I'm impressed." He stood, and pulled out a chair for Tony.

Tony raised his eyebrows, but sat in the chair without comment. Chivalry seemed to be engraved in Steve's genetic code, and protesting that he wasn't actually a woman only worked for a few minutes until Steve forgot himself again and did something like hold a door open for him. "So, the two of you are working together now? Should I be sacred?"

"Not yet. You should start being afraid when we let Jarvis in on our conspiracy." Steve resumed his seat and handed Tony a menu. The wine menu, Tony saw, had already been removed from their table -- he could see it sitting on one of the neighboring tables, a dark blot of red leather against the white tablecloth. "How did the meeting go?"

"Well..." he hesitated for dramatic emphasis. "SI's not going to go bankrupt in the next year," he finished, unable to suppress a smile.

"So it went well? Did they agree to the partnership arrangement?"

"You are looking at the spearhead of the federal government's new search for alternatives to fossil fuels. They were especially interested in the nuclear fusion project, though we're also going to push the refinements in solar technology we've made, because the public tends to get really twitchy when you use the words 'nuclear power' and 'green' in the same sentence."

"Congratulations." Steve toasted Tony with his water glass.

"Thanks. I think this is the first time things at work have gone right since Loki zapped me; you have no idea how much of a relief it is. Nobody said anything, but I think some of the board members were quietly floating the idea of replacing me." Tony had been more worried by the thought than he'd admitted to himself; without this deal, SI would have been out of options, no matter how hard he'd tried to put a good face on things for the board, and Tony would have lost his company once more. When he'd left the conference room, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't going to lose everything he'd fought so hard to regain after all, relief had hit him so hard that he'd actually had to run for the executive washroom to throw up.

Female bodies apparently reacted to stress differently; Tony had never been sick from nerves before. He was rarely sick at all, unless concussion or alcohol was involved.

At least he'd been at the office, where he didn't have to use the woman's bathroom. He still couldn't conquer the expectation that someone would scream and tell him to get out that he felt every time he entered one.

Steve frowned, looking mildly appalled, and Tony hastened to change the subject. "Still, it's a shame the helium project didn't get the green light, too. Extracting helium-3 from moon rocks is, unfortunately, not cost effective enough, plus the Immortals have a monopoly on them."

"Couldn't you trade for them, or just buy the rocks from them?"

Tony shook his head. "We tried that. Blackbolt said that we're a bunch on un-evolved primitives who have nothing that his people could possibly want. Or anyway, he gave me a contemptuous look that very clearly implied that and shook his head." The ruler of the Immortals never spoke, since his voice was a powerful sonic weapon, but after a while, you learned to read his expressions. "Trust Pietro to find a bunch of inlaws even more arrogant than he is."

Steve did not point out that that wasn't a very nice thing to say, but Tony had also learned long since to read _his _expressions, so he didn't need to.

"I don't think I've been to this restaurant before," Tony added. He would have remembered the Art Nouveau murals on the walls, particularly since one of them featured a nude woman whose modesty was preserved only by a few peacock feathers and some wisps of white cloth. The peacock motif was echoed in the architecture, and Tony suspected that the murals were as old as the building, though beautifully restored. He wondered if it restaurant was a family business, if Steve had ever been here back when it had been new. From the look of the place, the hotel the restaurant was attached to was Edwardian, and easily predated Steve, but its old glory days would have extended well into the twenties. "What do they have that's good?" he asked.

Steve shrugged. "I'm not sure, actually. I came here with Sharon once, but it was summer then, and all the specials were different."

Tony glanced over the menu; standard French restaurant fair, which meant Steve was going to get French onion soup and beef wellington. It was what he got every time they went to a French restaurant, to the point that Tony had once teased him for having such unadventurous tastes and taken him to a sushi restaurant the next time they met up to discuss Avengers business. He'd ordered the most bizarre and vaguely terrifying-looking sea creatures on the menu, just to see Steve's face when their food arrived, only to discover that Steve's tendency to order the exact same thing every time they went to a given restaurant concealed a hidden ability to eat absolutely anything.

He wondered, on that first date to the museum, why it didn't feel strange to be 'on a date' with Steve, when they had been friends for years, and had belatedly realized that it was because they had been friends for years that it felt so natural. They had essentially been dating since they'd met.

It had never been that easy with any of the women he had dated, or the occasional man. Even with Jan and Pepper, who had been his friends before he'd ever thought of them in a romantic context, it hadn't felt this natural, this right. Probably because Pepper had already started to fall in love with Happy by the time Tony had gotten around to noticing that his assistant a) wasn't named Kitty and b) was extremely attractive, and because he and Jan had both known from the start that a relationship between the two of them couldn't last.

This, now, with Steve wasn't going to last either, he knew. As much as he found himself wishing that it could, Tony wasn't going to lie to himself; eventually, he was going to revert back to his own gender, and then Steve would understandably lose interest in the physical part of their relationship. And even if that didn't happen, if Tony turned out to be stuck this way, Steve would eventually find someone who deserved him more than Tony did, who could make him happier than Tony could. Someone like Sharon Carter, whom he'd had a crush on for ages and would probably go back to in a heartbeat if she were willing to have him; Steve had broken up with her several times before, and they always seemed to end up back together in the end. Or someone like Bernie, the woman Steve had almost married a few years ago, someone who could offer Steve a chance at a normal life. Even as a woman, that was one thing Tony couldn't give him.

The fact that a relationship wasn't going to be permanent had never bothered Tony before. He generally preferred things that way, with no expectations and no strings attached. If everything with Indres had been real... but it hadn't, and that ought to have been enough to remind him, if he hadn't already known, that long-term commitment wasn't something people expected from him, or even wanted from him.

"If you want dessert," Steve said, nodding at the separate dessert menu which sat in the center of the table in the spot normally occupied by a wine list, "you need to decide on that now, too. Their specialty is a freshly baked apple tart with extra-thin slices of apple, and it takes at least a half hour to cook."

Steve hadn't been here in months, but he remembered how to order dessert in the way that would be least inconvenient for the staff. Of course he did.

"I was thinking," Tony said, staring across the table at Steve through his eyelashes and lowering his voice slightly -- exactly like this afternoon with the DoE representative, except that this time, it didn't make him feel dirty, "that we could have dessert later. Back at the mansion."

"We could do that," Steve said. "Yes. Let's do that."

Tony was still smirking with satisfaction when the waiter came to take their orders. He might not have Steve forever, but as long as he did, he was going to enjoy him. At least they seemed to have put the disaster with his stolen armor behind them, so when things eventually fell apart, they could still be friends.

ooOOoo

The NYPD was not always appreciative of superheroes -- they seemed to have an odd affection for Daredevil, but for the most part, they saw superheroes as interlopers who repeatedly attempted to do their jobs for them. When said job involved the Wrecking Crew, however, they couldn't call the Avengers quickly enough.

"Remember," Tony said, as he set the quinjet down in the courtyard in front of the Metropolitan museum -- any other form of transport would have taken too long -- "if they break anything, we're going to have to pay for it, so try to get them outside the museum before we engage them."

"That would be now," Sam announced, his eyes flashing golden. "Redwing just saw them coming out of the front entrance."

The quinjet shuddered violently as something smashed into the side of it with a deafening crunch of metal.

"Everybody out," Steve said, unslinging his shield. "That's our cue."

All for members of the Wrecking Crew were standing on the museum's front steps, Thunderball slowly reeling his massive wrecking ball back in. The Wrecker, their nominal leader, had a leather and metal-bound book tucked under one arm, presumably stolen from inside the museum.

The last time Jan had seen them, the police had been carting them away after their joint attack on the Avengers Mansion with the Master's of Evil. They had come close to killing Hercules, the four of them teaming up on him and beating him unconscious -- even a demigod was vulnerable to the effect of the Wrecker's enchanted crowbar and Piledriver's fists.

"What do they want with a book?" Tony asked. "I'm pretty sure Thunderball's the only one of them who can read."

"They've been hired by someone." Jan shrank down, taking flight, and eyed the group, trying to decide which of them her stingers would to the most good on. Thunderball or Piledriver, she decided. The Wrecker's purple ski mask protected his face, and Bulldozer preferred charging blindly at people anyway; he didn't need to see the fight.

Where was Thor when they needed him? Or She-Hulk, or anyone else with superstrength and at least partial invulnerability.

"You take the Wrecker, Iron Man," Steve ordered. "Your armor has the best chance of standing up to his crowbar. I'll take Piledriver. Falcon?"

"You go left," Sam told him. "I'll go right."

Wanda was staring fixedly at the Wrecker, pinkish-red spheres of chaos energy already gathering around her hands. "I've seen that book before," she said. "Where have I seen it?"

"If your pet tries to eat me again," Jan called to Sam, as Bulldozer started to run toward them, head down and shoulders squared for impact, "I'm blasting him the same as I would one of them."

Wanda made a throwing gesture with one hand, and Bulldozer tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face. Then the fight began in earnest.

A quarter of a hour later, the Avengers, most of them visibly the worse for wear -- especially Tony, whose was armor was dented in several places -- watched with satisfaction as Bulldozer, Piledriver, and an unconscious Thunderball whom Wanda had managed to knock unconscious with his own wrecking ball were loaded into a police van. The Wrecker had, unfortunately, gotten away, along with the medieval manuscript he had been carrying.

At least nothing valuable had been broken, unless a ten-foot radius of pavement counted, and a single manuscript was insignificant compared to the kind of damage the likes of the Wrecking Crew _could _have wreaked inside the museum.

"Are you all right?" Steve was staring straight ahead, arms folded, every inch the stern and stalwart Captain America as he watched the Wrecking Crew being carted away -- there were several news cameras focused on them all -- but his eyes kept drifting sideways to Tony. "He swung that thing at you like he was trying to knock you out of the park. I thought you were going to go sailing right on through the nearest building."

"Fine. The autopilot kicked before that happened. That's what it's there for." Tony paused, then added, "This is going to take forever to fix. I don't even want to look at the quinjet."

"It doesn't look too bad," Wanda offered. "I've seen Clint's car look worse, and you were always able to fix that." Jan wasn't sure if she was trying to be helpful, or making a joke at both Clint and Tony's expense.

Beside her, Sam was unsuccessfully trying to fend off Redwing's efforts to groom his hair, which were accompanied by fussing sounds that seemed an awful lot like scolding. "We're going to need a flatbed to get it back to the mansion," he observed. "Stop it. My hair is not-- I'm fine, Redwing. Quit it."

"They don't make spare parts for quinjets." Somehow, the mournful note in Tony's voice carried through despite the voice modifier in his helmet. "Everything is going to have to be rebuilt or recast by hand."

"You know you'll enjoy it," Steve said. He was smiling, beneath his mask, and sounded both fond and faintly amused. He and Tony had clearly resolved their differences, or at least put them aside long enough to be friends again.

For a moment, Jan found herself missing Hank so much that it hurt -- not the controlling, unstable jerk he'd turned into, but the Hank she'd fallen in love with. She had smiled at him like that, once upon a time. They had been teammates and partners before they'd been married, and she missed that almost as much as she missed the feel of his arms around her.

She couldn't even talk to anyone about it; either they wouldn't know enough about what had happened, or they would be appalled at her for missing the way things had been. She ought to have had no feelings left for him but contempt, or maybe pity, but the more time passed, the more she found herself remembering the parts of their relationship that had been good. The parts that had made them both happy.

It was all right to miss those while still being glad the rest of it was over, wasn't it?

"The museum is not going to be pleased that we couldn't recover the book," Jan said, forcing her mind back to business. "Their insurance ought to pay for it, I suppose, but it's not the kind of thing you can replace."

Steve shook his head. "All the priceless historical artifacts in there, and they walk out with a book. Why break into a museum just to steal a book?"

Wanda winced visibly. "Because it's not just any book. If I recognized the design on the cover right, it was a 13th century copy of the Darkhold scrolls. To the right collector, that would be worth more than any treasure in the museum."

"Why don't I like the sound of that?" Jan asked.

"Because it's magic," Tony said, with faint sarcasm, just as Sam asked,

"What kind of collectors are we talking about?"

"You know," Steve said, "not all of us find magic personally distasteful. Sometimes it has benefits."

"Keep this up, and you won't get to experience them."

Jan raised an eyebrow at Tony, which he blithely ignored. That had been a more obvious bit of flirtation than he normally indulged in with Steve. Flirting was generally the way Tony showed you that he liked you, but he made at least a half-hearted attempt to turn it down when he was interacting with other men.

Then again, he was female now. Maybe that changed things. He might not feel the need to hide that he was attracted to men anymore, now that he was in a body that made that socially acceptable.

"The kind of collector," Wanda said, "who likes to summon demons in their spare time. Or transform himself into a vampire, or gain ultimate power."

There was a moment of silence, while everyone struggled to keep their smiles in place for the news crews. "Like Doom," Tony said.

"I think Doom already has a copy," Wanda said, waving politely to a cameraman. "I'm going to have to tell Strange about this. If anyone can come up with a list of possible buyers for it, it would be him."

The crowd of reporters and general interested bystanders was surging forward now, as the police van left and took the immediate threat with it. They would have to talk to the press, of course. Not only did the Avengers generally need all the good publicity they could get, a supervillain attack on a major tourist site like the Met was bound to have people worrying about terrorism. "I think," Jan said carefully, "that we should avoid mentioning the book full of evil spells to the news crews."

ooOOoo

Tony checked his watch again. It was exactly one minute and thirty-five seconds later than the last time he'd done so. "You'd think the sorcerer supreme could be on time."

He and Wanda had been waiting for Strange for fifteen minutes at this point. Tony had given up any pretense of patience three minutes ago and gotten up to pace back and forth across the lab. Hank's lab. He still thought of it that way even though Hank hadn't used it in nearly a year.

It felt empty, these days. Tony had never thought he would actually miss the terrariums full of assorted creepy crawly things, but the lab seemed much more sterile with none of Hank or Scott Lang's pets in residence.

"You would think that," Wanda said, "but you would be wrong." She frowned slightly, fiddling with the seams on one red glove. "I think it's the doctor in him. When have you ever gone to a doctor's appointment and not ended up sitting around waiting for ages?"

"I don't usually have doctor's appointments. And when I do, they're generally on time." Most of Tony's hospital experiences had involved the emergency room, and if there had been any waiting, he'd been too unconscious to notice. He'd tried to avoid doctors entirely during his first year as Iron Man, when he had still needed the breastplate to keep his damaged heart beating properly, and even after his heart condition had become public knowledge, the habit had stuck.

"That happens when you pay for an entire hospital wing." Wanda's voice was absent; she was still staring at her glove. "I must have torn this when we fought the Wrecking Crew yesterday. I hate it when I do that. Do you know how hard it is to get elbow-length silk gloves in red?"

"They fixed my heart. Of course I funded their renovation." He was starting to worry, though, that maybe they hadn't fixed it completely, or that his transformation had somehow undone part of the surgical repairs. Or it might be nothing so exotic as that -- he had inflicted a hell of a lot of abuse on his body over the past year. "If I can get Brooks Brothers and Armani tailored to fit me, you ought to be able to get someone to make you gloves," he added. "Do they have to be silk?"

He'd initially thought that moment of dizziness he'd experienced after the meeting with the Department of Energy had been low blood sugar, or maybe an after effect of being sick, but it had happened again, several times over the past week. And then, yesterday, during the fight, he had turned sharply at high speed and momentarily greyed out from the G forces. Only the armor's built-in fail safes had kept him from crashing, and the Wrecker had been able to take advantage of his disorientation to bat him out of the sky with his enchanted crowbar. There wasn't any pain, not the way there had been before, when every failure of his chestplate had meant agony, but his entire body felt wrong, off somehow, in a way that couldn't be explained just by being a woman; he'd gotten used to that at this point.

Hank's lab was approximately twenty feet by thirty-five feet -- pacing from one side to the other took ten steps in each direction. Tony turned, keeping Wanda in sight, and started another circuit.

The crowbar had left dents in his armor that were going to take most of this evening to hammer back out; the armor was much more difficult to repair than the average costume. Tony found himself actually looking forward to it. It would be a soothing way to let out his frustration after Wanda and Strange inevitably failed once again to change him back. There was something deeply satisfying about old-fashioned hands-on metal working, especially when it involved hitting things repeatedly.

"Silk insulates magical energy better than leather does," Wanda was saying.

"Really?" Tony asked, temporarily diverted from his brooding. If silk's low conductivity applied to magical energy as well as electricity, then it ought to follow that high conductivity would transfer over as well. "What about gold and copper? Does glass insulate magic, too?"

"Why do you think so many magical artifacts are made of gold? I've never thought about glass, though. The crystalline structure in most gemstones amplifies and focuses magical energy, but glass isn't really a crystal."

That actually almost made sense. It was disconcerting when magic made sense; the fact that it sometimes followed logical patterns and sometimes didn't was even worse than if it were entirely random, because what logic it did follow couldn't be relied upon.

Tony glanced down at his watch again. It was exactly two minutes later than the last time he'd checked it. "Do think Strange really is on to something this time? He's been meditating on it for a month."

"Actually, two weeks out of the past month he was in another dimension with Clea. Some kind of demonic entity was trying to breach the barriers between the dimensions and consume all life on earth." Wanda had pulled her torn gloves off by this point and draped them over the arm of her chair. The pink and red of her tights and cape were the brightest colors in the room, standing out vividly against the white walls and white tile floor; wearing her Scarlet Witch costume apparently made it easier for her to concentrate on magic.

"I guess that would take priority over me," Tony admitted. It was, he had learned over the years, better not to ask too many questions about the kinds of things Strange did or fought. It only made his head hurt.

"Modesty from Tony Stark. Perhaps being a woman has been good for you."

Tony spun on his heel to find Strange standing -- posing -- in the lab's doorway, his cloak billowing around him in a non-existent breeze.

"In that case," Wanda muttered, "I know some other people who could try it."

Tony reminded himself that Strange was here to help him and very carefully didn't snicker. "So, you think you can change me back this time, doctor?" he asked.

"In theory," Strange said, entering the room and closing the door behind him. "You were not Loki's original target. The spell used on you was designed to affect a god, and there are layers to it that even I have not yet proven able to decipher. I suspect that Loki sought assistance in its creation from a magical adept. However, though it has become increasingly obvious that the spell cannot simply be broken by the application of superior magical force, it may be possible to gradually remove it."

Tony shifted uneasily on his feet. "Gradually? That sounds unpleasant."

"It shouldn't be. Your transformation back to your own gender wouldn't be gradual. The Scarlet Witch and I would be unraveling the spell one layer at a time, slowly weakening it until it could be broken, at which point you would revert back to your natural form."

"How long is this going to take?"

"As long as it takes." Strange frowned. "The spell's coils are actually visible around you, to the right eyes. I don't think you realize how intricate and extensive they are. Though," his frown deepened, "they've altered since the last time I examined them."

"What do you mean, changed? It's not as if I could be any more of a woman."

"Your aura has altered." Strange was staring intently at him now, the piercing blue gaze unnerving, as if Tony were a particularly interest specimen on a lab table. "Here." One gloved hand traced a circle in the air just over Tony's heart, and Tony felt his stomach lurch.

His heart. Of course. No wonder he had been having dizzy spells, had felt wrong, exhausted, ill. Tony drew in a deep breath, forcing himself not to react visibly, and tried to think how he would break the news to Steve.

"And here." Strange's hand moved lower, hovering in front of Tony's stomach, and then his eyes widened, and he pulled his hand back abruptly. "Light of Oshtur! That's- that's not possible. Dr. Pym's data was very specific."

"What data?" One of the worst parts of having a female body, Tony thought, for a half-hysterical second, was the way his voice went shrill when he was upset.

"Dr. Pym ran numerous blood tests on you after you were first transformed. Your female body was completely sterile." Strange was frowning fiercely now, one hand raised toward Tony again.

There was, Tony though, no good way any explanation that included the phrase 'completely sterile' could end.

"This is extremely bad news." Strange shook his head, glaring at Tony's abdomen as if it had personally offended him. "Apparently your body is becoming more fully female as time passes. It is a complication I had not predicted. And of course changing you back now is out of the question without medical intervention. Otherwise the process would most likely kill you."

"What?" Wanda was on her feet now, appalled shock naked on her face. "What do you mean, most likely kill him?"

The important thing, Tony told himself, was to be calm. He could fall apart later, after he'd broken the news to Steve -- at least, that half-hysterical part of his mind whispered, he'd get to stay with Steve, if he was stuck this way. For what time he had left anyway. "So I'm sterile," he said, managing to keep his voice steady with surprisingly little effort, "and I'm somehow turning even female than I already am, and I'm going to have a heart attack if you change me back?" On second thought, he should probably break things off with Steve now, before his heart got any worse.

"What? Oh no." Strange shook his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Quite the opposite, actually. You were sterile. You are most assuredly not sterile anymore."

"And that's bad?" Wanda asked. "It makes a certain kind of sense, I suppose. There would be magical resonances involving the potential to create life."

"I'm afraid we're not dealing with potential at the moment." Strange raised an eyebrow at Tony. "You truly don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"Congratulations," Strange said, his voice heavy with irony. "You're going to be a mother."

ooOOoo


	4. Chapter 4

_Title_: An Ever Fixed Mark

_Author_: seanchai and elspethdixon

_Rating_: PG-13

_Pairings_/Characters: Steve/Tony, Jan, Hank, Wanda, assorted other Avengers

_Labels_: gender-swap

_Warnings_: This fic deals with pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage.

* * *

**Part Four:**

"You have to tell him, Tony. Whatever you do is your choice, but he deserves to know." Wanda's voice was audible from down the hallway, the concern in it obvious.

Steve put down the boot he had been cleaning and went to the door. Tony's appointment with Strange must be over.

When he saw Tony and Wanda walking down the hallway toward the living room, Tony still very obviously female, he had to force down a wave of disappointment. Another failure, then. The frustration had to be getting to Tony; lack of progress was never something he handled well, particularly in cases like this, where he was both directly affected and powerless to help.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me about the two of you," Wanda was saying with forced cheer, giving Tony a playful shove. Tony swayed with the motion, completely unsmiling; he looked shell-shocked, pale. The session with Strange must have gone very badly. "Now that you're a girl, it's your obligation as part of the feminine sisterhood to tell me and Jan exactly what Cap looks like naked."

Steve cleared his throat, feeling his face heat with embarrassment.

Wanda and Tony looked up with twin startled expressions. Then Tony looked away, misery clear in every line of his body.

"Cap!" Wanda said. "I... didn't see you there."

"Obviously," Steve couldn't help saying.

Wanda flushed, her face almost as red as Steve suspected his own was. "You and Steve have a lot to talk about," she told Tony. "I should leave you two alone."

"Don't tell anyone," Tony said quickly, grabbing her by the arm as she turned to go.

Wanda shook her head, serious again. "I won't. Look, Tony, it will be okay. Whatever you decide to do, the rest of the team will be here for you."

Then she walked away, cape rippling behind her, leaving the two of them alone. "What's wrong?" Steve asked, the pit of his stomach suddenly hollow. _'He deserves to know.' 'The rest of the team will be here for you.' 'It will be okay.'_

This was more than just an attempt to change Tony back failing once again. "It's not your heart, is it?"

Tony blinked, his mouth twitching into a half smile for a moment. "Huh. That's the first thing I thought of, too."

"So it's not your heart?" The swell of relief was almost as nauseating as the fear had been. "Then what is it? And don't to pretend nothing's wrong. You look like you've been given a death sentence."

Tony closed his eyes, face twisting. "I'm pregnant," he blurted out.

"You're _what? _You can't be!" Steve shook his head, almost wanting to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the idea. Tony wasn't really a woman. And they had used protection every time, after those first two times, and... "What do you mean, pregnant?"

"I mean pregnant. Bearing your spawn pregnant." Tony looked away, his shoulders visibly shaking. "I can't do this, Steve. I can't. Not having a dick is bad enough. My body's not supposed to _do _this."

Steve set a hand on each of Tony's shoulders, turning him gently until they were facing one another again. "It's okay," he said -- babbled, really, the words sounding like they were coming from someone else. "We'll figure this out."

Tony shook his head, the motion quick and jerky. "There's something alive _inside of me. _They make horror movies about this kind of thing."

"It's a baby, not an alien," Steve said, his thumbs making slow circles on Tony's shoulders. If they both calmed down, they would be able to think this through, to figure out what they ought to do.

He'd gotten Tony pregnant. It hadn't even occurred to him that such a thing was possible.

How could they have been so stupid? That first time in the gym, and then in Tony's lab, he should have-- he'd assumed that the fact that the supersoldier serum made him immune to most viruses meant that they would be safe. Tony had insisted on protection after that, but only as a formality, because it 'feels wrong not use anything. I always use protection, Steve. The last thing my public needs at this point is a paternity suit.'

So stupid. Of course Tony could get pregnant. He might be male, but his body was very definitely female. Steve knew that better than anyone.

"It's not a baby yet," Tony said, shaking his head again. "It's only been a month. There's still time to fix things."

Still time to fix things. Steve's panic ebbed slightly, as he realized that Tony was right. Steve might have screwed up, but there was still time for him to do the right thing.

He took a deep breath, trying to nerve himself up. The thought of what he was about to do wasn't as frightening as he'd expected, though the circumstances could have been better.

There would be no going back from this, he knew. It was going to be permanent. Their lives would never be the same.

Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.

"You're right," he said. "It's not too late to fix this. We can get married; they'll let us do that now that you're a woman. Then the baby can have both of our names. And we can-"

Tony took a step back, jerking himself free from Steve's hands. "That's not what I-- I'm not going to force you to marry me just because we were stupid and I got... oh God, I can't even say it again. I'm not _keeping _it, Steve." He locked eyes with Steve, his voice tight with suppressed emotion. "Strange thinks I could end up stuck like this forever if I do."

Feeling hurt was silly, Steve told himself. He had known about the baby's existence for less than five minutes; he couldn't possibly have any emotional attachment to it already. And of course Tony didn't want to marry him. They'd barely been together a month. They hadn't told the rest of the team about it, hadn't even spent the night together yet, one of them always slipping away back to their own bed before morning to avoid the inevitable explanations that would follow if one of them was seen leaving the other's room early in the morning.

"You're not?" he asked. And then, "What do you mean, stuck like this?"

Tony was staring at the floor now, shoulders slumped. "Strange thinks the spell is getting stronger over time, tightening its hold on me. Hank ran blood tests on me when I was first changed. I was infertile then. I've never even menstruated." He laughed, the sound edged with hysteria. "I was relieved about that. I thought I was lucky, that at least that was one part of being a woman I wouldn't have to deal with."

"I'm sorry," Steve said, wretchedly. Had what he and Tony had done made the spell worse? Goddamnit, they should have been more careful, and not just about using protection. It was possible that the mere act of having sex as a woman had done something to the spell. "I- does he have any idea how to break the spell? Does Wanda?"

"Maybe, but this..." Tony waved a hand vaguely, clearly at a loss as to how to describe it. "This complicates things."

"I'm so sorry," Steve repeated. And the worst part was that he couldn't even bring himself to regret what they had done, not really -- he'd been happier over the past few weeks than he had been in a long time, and most of that had been because of Tony. "I never thought-"

Tony shook his head. "Neither did I, obviously." His voice was bitter. He wrapped his arms around his ribcage, shoulders hunched in on himself, and stared at a point on the carpet behind and slightly to the left of Steve.

He still looked pale, the sharp angles of his cheekbones making him look fragile. Steve wanted to touch him, to comfort him somehow, but misery held him paralyzed.

Swallowing hurt. "What do you want to do?" he asked, bracing himself for the answer. He couldn't blame Tony if he wanted nothing to do with Steve after this.

"Not be pregnant! That's what I want to do."

Steve half-raised one hand, intending to put a hand on Tony's arm, pull him in for a hug, something, then thought better of it. Tony might not want Steve to touch him. Probably didn't want Steve to touch him.

"Whatever you decide to do will be all right with me," he said. "It's your body, and your future." The fact that Steve had envisioned a future for both of them, even if only for a few seconds, was immaterial.

If the baby were actually going to be born, would it have been a boy or a girl? Would it have inherited the supersoldier serum? Tony's fiercely determined intelligence?

It probably would have ended up with Steve's ears, poor kid. And unmarried parents, and more media attention than any child should ever have to experience.

"I'm sorry I asked you to marry me," he added. "I shouldn't have assumed. It's the old fashioned guy in me."

Tony shook his head, and Steve found himself staring at the dark lines of his eyelashes, at the curves and angles of his too-delicate face. His body was completely hidden under the masculine business attire he hadn't stopped wearing, but the way he had his arms wrapped around himself made his smaller size even more obvious. Funny. Steve had intimate knowledge of the body under those dress shirts and expensive suits now, but the slender waist and soft curves he could see when he closed his eyes weren't really Tony.

Tony felt the same way, he knew. If he really was stuck like this, if Strange couldn't fix him...

"It's why we love you," Tony said. Not 'why I love you,' Steve noted. "Don't tell anyone about this, all right? I meant it when I told Wanda that I didn't want anyone to know." His jaw set, and Steve recognized the flash of stubborn determination in his eyes, and the panic lurking behind it. "I just want this over with as soon as possible, and as quietly as possible."

He turned to go, and Steve didn't stop him.

Tony had decided to plow through this with the same angry ruthlessness he'd shown the people who'd taken his armor, except this time, that anger was directly at himself, and probably also at Steve. Steve couldn't imagine a loss of control greater than this. Tony was never going to forgive him.

ooOOoo

"As current chair-person, I hereby call this week's Avengers meeting to order."

It always felt like she ought to be banging a gavel on the table when she said that, though the current team line-up was much less prone to shouting fights and arm-wrestling matches in the conference room than some.

"Does anyone have any points of business to bring up?" Jan went on. These meetings always reminded her how heavily Tony had been involved in writing their by-laws. "Do we want Iron Man to read us the latest financial report on the Maria Stark Foundation and our funding, or shall we skip that?"

Everyone unanimously voted 'no,' as they always did -- if there were ever any problems with their finances, Tony would tell them without the need for anyone to ask, and unless there _were _problems, almost no one was ever interested in hearing about how the Foundation's investments were doing. It had been a major concern a few months ago, when the stock market had been going haywire, but the Foundation seemed to be weathering the current downturn just fine.

"Right," Jan said. "In that case, let's move on to the next item on the agenda. Hercules officially requests that he be moved from the injured list to reserve member status, citing family responsibilities on Olympus. All in favor?"

Steve, Sam, Wanda, and Tony all raised their hands.

Jan surveyed the table, noting the fact that Steve and Tony were sitting as far away from one another as they could and refusing to meet one another's eyes. She thought the two of them had made up and gotten over their differences -- they'd been spending time together off duty, and Steve had finally, blessedly, stopped sulking for the first time in over a year -- but apparently not. That, or something new had come up.

Technically, as chairperson, she had the power to asked them point blank what the problem was, and whether it would interfere with their ability to work together as a team, but in practice... almost no one but Steve or Thor ever took advantage of that power.

No, she decided. They were teammates, but they were also her friends. She'd get it out of one of them later, unofficially. That, or she'd just ask Wanda, who, judging by the looks she kept casting both of them, clearly knew what was going on.

"Is there any new information about the Masters of Evil's escape from Rikers?" she asked.

Steve, who was the one who generally functioned as their liaison with SHIELD, shook his head. "Nick Fury's people haven't seen any sign of them. And the NYPD have come up empty handed, as well. Knowing Zemo, he's probably gone to ground back in Germany, and taken the rest of them with him."

"It must be nice having your own castle to hide out in," Sam observed. "At least the Wrecking Crew is still locked up. Maybe we'll get lucky, and they'll actually stay that way for a while." Redwing, perched on his shoulder, made a trilling noise that sounded almost like agreement. Jan was never sure exactly how much human speech he understood.

"Luck hasn't exactly been on our side lately," Tony muttered. He was wearing his armor, and with the helmet and voice modulation in place, Jan could almost imagine that he was no different than he had ever been.

"Scarlet Witch," she asked, "any progress on returning Iron Man to normal?"

Wanda opened her mouth to speak, and Tony raised one gauntlet, cutting her off.

"We've hit a small speed bump," he said. "It will only take a couple of weeks to remedy the situation, though."

Steve winced. Wanda stared down at her folded hands, clearly avoiding Jan's eyes.

All right, so whatever this speed bump was, it apparently had something to do with Steve and Tony's decision to start fighting again.

Sam caught her eyes, irritation clear on his face, and Jan felt a moment's kinship with him; he didn't like being left in the dark about whatever was causing the silent tension in the room any more than she did.

There was a brief tapping on the conference room door, followed immediately by the door opening to reveal Jarvis, Thor standing immediately behind him.

"Thor has returned," Jarvis announced unnecessarily, a pleased smile on his face.

"Thor," Tony said, rising to his feet. "Welcome back, big guy." Even though the armor's voice processors, he sounded pleased. "I thought you were going to hide in Valhalla forever."

Jan stood as well, feeling herself break into a smile at the sight of him, and waved him to a seat.

Thor shook his head, and remained standing, his hands folded behind his back. "I was not hiding," he said primly. "I was seeking out my treacherous kinsman in hopes that I might be able to induce him to reverse what he has done to you."

"No luck, huh?" Steve's voice was wry.

"Alas not. However, I was able to convince some of Loki's allies in Asgard to divulge certain pieces of information about his plans to me, information sufficiently troubling that I felt it best to halt my search and return here to warn you." Thor turned back to Tony, expression grave. "Iron Man, you must be very careful. The spell placed on you was intended to do more than simply transform me into a woman. Loki's actions appeared spontaneous, but he had been planning this attack for some time."

Wanda nodded. "We know. The spell is too complex to be solely Loki's work. Dr. Strange believes he had help from another magician, and I agree. Not the Enchantress, though; it's much too subtle for her."

Thor's frown deepened. "That is troubling news indeed," he rumbled, "for whomever it is has participated in an attack at the very heart of Asgard, albeit a circuitous one. Loki, that treacherous snake, planned not just to humiliate me, but to capture me and induce me to bear one of his children. As I am my father's successor to the throne of Asgard, so my own child, whether male of female, would likewise succeed me, placing the spawn of frost giants upon HlidskjЗlf, the great silver throne from which the whole world can be surveyed."

Ouch. Jan winced, and laid a hand on Thor's arm, hoping the gesture conveyed her sympathy. Loki had been carrying out a vendetta against Thor for years, longer than any of the rest of them had been alive, but this was the most personal attack she had heard of yet.

"Well," Tony said, after a long moment of silence. "Better me than you, then, I guess."

Wanda frowned, looking up from her interlaced fingers to study Thor intently. "And Loki just assumed that once female, you would be willing to produce a child with him?"

Thor grimaced. "My consent was neither anticipated nor necessary, I believe."

"Isn't he your brother?" Sam sounded openly horrified. He had never been on a team with Thor, Hercules, or any of the Avengers' other divine or semi-divine members before; the particularly nasty nature of Asgardian politics was clearly a revelation to him.

"Foster brother," Thor corrected. "We are not related by blood. Nor by affection, any longer; not since he first revealed his treacherous nature and became kinslayer and outcast."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, that would do it, I imagine." He still looked skeptical, eyeing Thor uneasily. The idea that anyone would kidnap and rape a sibling -- blood relative or not -- as part of a political plot was obviously new to him and probably not something he thought Thor should be taking this lightly.

"That is not the part that need concern you, however." Thor stepped away from Jan, moving to Tony's side and placing one massive hand on his shoulder. "My friend, you must take great care not to engage in any... amorous activities with any man so long as this spell endures. In order to ensure the success of his scheme, Loki laid a trap within his spell to ensure that my womb would quicken the very first time I lay with him."

Only Thor, Jan thought, could utter a sentence like that without either blushing or displaying any other visible sign of embarrassment or amusement.

Wanda made a choking sound, glancing quickly at Tony and then away.

Steve covered his face with one hand, his ears going bright red. "You're not going to get a chance to kill him, Thor," he growled. "I'm going to do it first."

"I told you it wasn't your fault," Tony told him.

The silence that followed that statement was immediate and resounding.

Tony's face might be hidden under an expressionless metal helmet, but Steve's mask did nothing hide his open mortification. Jan didn't even have to ask if it what Tony had just implied was true -- Steve's face told her.

"Oh My God, you're pregnant?" she blurted out. Pregnant. Tony. The entire concept was ludicrous, not to mention deeply out of character -- Tony had insisted on protection every time they had slept together, during Jan's brief and ill-advised fling with him last year, despite the fact that she'd been on birth control. Then again, there had been magic at work. Maybe Loki's spell had over-ridden his and Steve's good judgment. Or magically over-ridden any precautions they had taken.

"You two are sleeping together?" Sam demanded, his words overlapping with hers. "You do realize he's going to turn back into a guy eventually, right?"

Steve looked at Sam with a pained expression. Next to him, Wanda had buried her face in her hands.

Thor cleared his throat, looking both startled and concerned. "I cannot apologize enough for the indignities you have suffered on my account, Iron Man." He hesitated. "Or should I be offering my congratulations?"

"I hate my life," Tony announced.

"Take heart, my friend," Thor said, clapping Tony on the shoulder again. "At least your child will be human. I'm sure he or she will be a most powerful warrior, as well."

Tony froze, the armor going motionless like a machine that had abruptly had its power shut off. Then he shook his head, turned away from them all, and silently left the room.

Thor stared mournfully after him. "What in my words hath distressed him so?"

Steve and Wanda exchanged a long look that made Jan wonder what else they knew that they were still concealing.

"As long as he's pregnant, Tony can't safely be returned to his true form," Wanda said, finally. "He's stuck as a woman right now. And the longer he stays this way, the harder it will be to change him back."

Which meant, Jan concluded, that Tony didn't plan on _staying _pregnant. No wonder he didn't want to hear Thor talking about what kind of warrior his and Steve's child would be.

Sam was frowning now, his initial shock gone. "What happens if he changes back by himself? If the spell wears off before the kid is born?"

That was a very good question, actually. Would the pregnancy just disappear? Jan doubted it -- a spell handcrafted by Loki would never be that convenient or nice. Yet another reason for Tony to decide not to keep the baby; it wasn't worth his life.

Wanda shook her head slowly. "That would be bad."

Steve blanched. "I hadn't thought of that." He was still staring at the door Tony had disappeared through, his jaw set.

"Do not worry," Thor assured him. "Loki would not risk losing his chance to have his progeny rule Asgard to something as simple as a malfunctioning spell. The enchantment will endure until it is broken by another."

"All right," Jan said, clapping her hands together. "I think we can declare this Avengers meeting adjourned. Steve, go after him and make sure he's all right."

ooOOoo

The steel alloy of his breastplate made a satisfying clang each time his hammer smashed into it. He had let the dents the Wrecker's crowbar had left if in go unfixed for too long -- he had meant to fix it the day before yesterday, before Strange's announcement had distracted him.

The armor came first, always. He was letting himself lose sight of what was important.

Tony hated magic. He'd always hated it, but now, he had discovered new and previously unplumbed depths of loathing for it.

Everybody knew. All the promises he'd extracted from Steve and Wanda to say nothing, and he'd blurted the truth of his pregnancy out in front of half the team in a moment of utter, thoughtless stupidity.

And Thor had tried to be happy for him. _"I'm sure he or she will be a most powerful warrior," _he's said, smiling hopefully at Tony.

How was he going to explain to the big guy that there wasn't going _be _a baby? It had been hard enough telling Steve, watching the brief flash of excitement and hope fade from his eyes. In his shoes, he knew, Steve would go through with it, keep the baby, even if it cost him the chance to return to his own gender forever. Because it was the right thing to do. Because Steve never put his own selfish desires above what was best for other people.

It would have been so much easier if he'd never told Steve in the first place -- he hadn't intended too, until Wanda had forced the issue. He could have just gone ahead and quietly gotten an abortion without anyone being the wiser, and then it would have been as if the whole nightmare had never happened.

He redoubled the force of his blows, angling the hammer slightly with each one and squinting against the bright flare of sparks each strike produced. The first of the dents was almost gone now. He would have to heat the metal again, he decided, before moving on to the second, larger dent.

The heat was like a physical pressure against his face and arms, enough to be just this side of painful. Like the noise, and the smell of hot metal, it was welcome, soothing.

"Tony?"

Steve's voice, from behind him.

Tony slammed the hammer down again, then again, letting the noise drown out any further words. Can't hear you, Steve.

"Tony!" Steve shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of Tony's blacksmith work.

_'Please', _Tony begged silently, _'just go away.'_

The hand on his shoulder made him jump, his hammer landing at the wrong angle and skidding along the surface of the super-heated breastplate with a grinding sound and a shower of sparks.

"Tony," Steve said, almost in his ear. "I know you can hear me. Put the tools down and talk to me, please?"

Tony didn't turn around. "Don't stand this close to me when I'm working with hot metal. You're not wearing any safety goggles."

"Are you okay?"

Tony let his shoulders sag, suddenly exhausted, and laid the hammer down gently on his work bench, next to the still dully glowing breastplate. "What do you think?"

"They all understand, you know. Or they will, when we tell them. Wanda explained that carrying this child could leave you trapped as a woman forever."

Steve's voice was soft, gentle, completely free of judgment.

It made Tony want to yell at him, lash out at him, turn that concerned, sorrowful calm into the more familiar anger Steve usually displayed when Tony had fucked up.

"What would you do, if it were your body?" he asked.

"What I would do doesn't matter. This is your decision to make."

"Which means you'd keep it." As if there were really any question about that. Tony stared down at the pieces of his armor, the dent still visibly scarring the side of his breastplate. If he looked at Steve, he knew, he would see the disappointment in his eyes -- maybe he could keep it out of his voice, but his face had always been painfully easy to read.

"I don't know," Steve said. "I'd like to think I would, but I don't know. I never thought there would be space in my life for children, for a family."

_'There still isn't,' _Tony thought. _'Not with me.' _He had expected their relationship, romance, whatever you wanted to call it, would end eventually, either when he finally got his real body back, or when he once again found himself with no choice but to use methods that Steve disagreed with. He hadn't expected it to end like this.

"There definitely isn't any space in mine," he said. "No child deserves the kind of disaster I'd be as a parent." Not to mention that alcoholism could be inherited. His DNA might be a ticking timebomb, for all he knew.

There was a long silence, and Tony was about to pick up his welding torch and get to work again, and hope that Steve would take the hint and leave, when Steve spoke again.

"Thor doesn't think there's any risk of you spontaneously changing back, so you don't have to worry about that. I just..." He trailed off, and Tony could imagine the expression he was probably wearing, half frustrated, half worried, could almost _see _him nervously rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "I don't want you to do anything dangerous."

Dangerous? "I know what I'm doing."

"I know that, I just... I didn't realize, when you first told me, how dangerous this could be. Not until Wanda explained just now. Whatever you do, the risk-"

Steve had grown up in the thirties, when abortions were illegal and probably performed in somebody's kitchen with a coat hanger, or by unethical 'doctors' who'd flunked out of med school or had their licenses revoked.

"Abortion is legal now, Steve," Tony interrupted. "I can go to a perfectly legitimate doctor in a nice, clean, private, expensive clinic where I will be perfectly safe. It's not like it was in nineteen forty."

"I know." Steve hesitated for a long moment, then, "Would you have told me? If Wanda hadn't made you?"

"Yes," Tony said, thankful that he was facing away from Steve, that Steve wouldn't be able to see the lie in his face.

"No," Steve said. "I don't think you would have." Tony did his best not to flinch as Steve's hand landed on his shoulder, tugging at him gently but firmly. Tony let himself be turned around; he'd never been good at saying no to Steve, not unless it was important.

He stared at Steve's chest, not meeting his eyes, as Steve went on, "You would have gone out and taken care of it on your own, without telling me or anyone else or asking anyone for help, just like you tried to do with your stolen armor."

Tony shook his head, but it was a useless gesture. Steve knew him too well, apparently.

"If I'd asked for help, you would have stopped me," he defended, more from reflex than anything else. Steve _had _tried to stop him, when he'd discovered what Tony was doing. "And then people would have died. Maybe not right away, but eventually."

Steve shook his head. "You say that, every time we talk about this, but you can't know that. And you can't know that you would be a bad parent."

There was a tiny burn on Steve's chest, a dark pinprick on one of the blue scales. A spark must have hit him while Tony was working on the armor. If he looked down at his own arms, Tony knew, he would probably see more small burns; he barely noticed them at this point, after years of metal working. Most of them healed in a few days, without scarring.

He would be a terrible parent. Half the time, these days, it seemed to Tony that he could barely take care of himself, let alone another person. Not that it was going to matter, because regardless of whether or not he was taking the coward's way out, there was no way he could go through with this.

Even thinking about it too hard made him feel sick, violated, made him long desperately for a drink. His body literally wasn't his own anymore. He'd been handling being female, not enjoying it, save for those moments when he was with Steve, but handling it. His body had let him down before; this had only been a new and occasionally humiliating variation on a theme. He'd just had to take it one day at a time, get through each board meeting, party, conference, and newspaper interview as it came.

Having Steve to come home to, knowing that Steve's hands, his mouth, his body could actually make having a woman's body... not exactly a substitute for his own body, but fun nonetheless, that Steve _wanted _him this way... that and the fact that he could still wear the armor, still be Iron Man, were what made not reaching for the bottle of whisky he still kept in his desk drawer possible.

The fact that one of the few things that had made it possible for him to stay sane like this was also the thing that had gotten him into this fucking mess, turned being female from something Tony could handle and live with into something that could literally kill him, would probably have been beautifully ironic if it had happened to someone else.

"It doesn't matter," Tony said., throat suddelnly tight so that speaking was almost painful. "I can't do this. I'm not doing this."

Steve laid a hand on Tony's shoulder again, and reached for Tony's chin with his other hand, his big, warm fingers curling carefully around Tony's jaw. "Look at me, Tony," he said, in a tone of voice that Tony couldn't ignore, regardless of how much he wanted to. It was the same voice he used in bed, the one that was somehow both soft and commanding. _'I bet I can find a way to make you stop talking about engineering, Tony,' _while he pushed Tony against the same work table Tony was standing against now. _'Hold still. I'm not done with you yet,' _while he mapped all the scars on Tony's body with his hands and tongue. _'Do you know how beautiful you look like this?' _said with a soft little smile as he stared up at Tony moving above him.

Tony let Steve tilt his chin up, let Steve lift the goggles he'd forgotten he was still wearing up to set them on his forehead, made himself meet those clear, blue eyes.

"I know that whatever you do," Steve said, "it will be what you think is right. For yourself and for everyone else."

Tony blinked hard, eyes hot, as Steve's face blurred. He shook his head again, pulling away from Steve's hand. Steve always had faith in him, even when he didn't have any faith in himself. It was one of the things Tony loved in him, but he wished with all his soul that Steve wouldn't do it, would stop unthinkingly laying the heavy burden of his trust and belief on Tony. It only made disappointing him, fighting with him, letting him down all the more painful.

"I don't know what's right any more." Tony's voice sounded strange, quiet and hoarse and choked off by the tightness in his throat, and, as always these days, not deep enough. "I don't think I've known for a long time."

He blinked again, trying to keep the moisture in his eyes from spilling over. He was not going to cry in front of Steve. Damn it, what was wrong with him?

Hormones, probably. His body kept discovering new ways to betray him.

"Tony-" Steve raised one hand, almost touching him, then let it drop. "I-"

Tony closed his eyes and stepped forward into Steve's solid, leather-clad mass, wrapping his arms around Steve as tightly as he could. He'd thought he was prepared to give Steve up when the time came. He'd been wrong.

He'd been wrong about a lot of things lately, but not about this. He couldn't keep this baby. Even if it meant losing Steve. Not telling him about the pregnancy would have been easier, and would probably have hurt Steve less in the long run, but Wanda was right. He had had the right to know. And the guilt over keeping the secret would probably have eventually become even more painful than the misery of having Steve know everything. Probably.

"You don't have to marry me," he mumbled into Steve's costume. The edges of his goggles cut into his forehead, and the leaf-shaped pieces of Steve's scale mail were sharp aginst his face. "I'm only going to be pregnant for another couple of weeks, so you don't have to make an honest woman of me. It would take more than a debatably legal wedding to do that anyway."

Steve's arms tightened around him. "You don't have to keep the baby. I just want you to be okay. I want us to-"

"There's still an 'us?'" Tony interrupted. He tensed, awaiting Steve's answer, ready to force himself to open his eyes and let go.

Steve's hand, which had been rubbing slow circles on Tony's back, froze. "Unless you want me to leave," he said, his voice tight and too calm, as if he were keeping it that way by force of will alone.

"No." Tony shook his head, the hard ridges of the scale mail scraping against his cheek. Then, again, more forcefully. "No. Don't leave."

"I won't." It had the sound of a promise, and Steve always kept his promises.

"Good." Tony said, forcing his voice to be steady again. He opened his eyes and looked up at Steve, managing to dredge up a smile from somewhere. "If you're going to stay, though, you'll need to put on some eye protection. I wasn't kidding earlier about the hot metal."

Steve's grin was sudden and blinding. "I'm sure you have an extra pair of goggles around here somewhere."

ooOOoo

One of the great benefits of being back on the East Coast was that the kitchen was Jarvis's domain here, rather than a semi-abandoned No Man's Land mostly used for eating the take-out Clint and Bobbi ordered.

The only West Coast team members with any interest in cooking at all were John Walker -- whose culinary abilities mainly extended to grilling or deep frying things, which Wanda wouldn't have minded except that he never cleaned the kitchen afterwards -- Wanda herself, and Hank, who tended to treat any food he cooked as if it were a chemistry experiment, sometimes with disturbing results.

Jarvis, on the other hand, was one of the best cooks Wanda had ever known. And, ever since the first time Beast had done a rotation on the team, he always kept twinkies in the freezer.

Deep fried twinkies were an X-Men tradition, one of the few Wanda had ever adopted. Pietro would never admit to liking something so classlessly American, but that never stopped him from eating three of them in a row, and it was also one of the few things she and John had ever bonded over. He might be a chauvinistic jerk, but U.S. Agent understood the appeal of sugar and grease almost as well as an energy mutant.

Jarvis liked them, too, she suspected, though he would never lower himself so far as to actually make them.

"Is the deep fryer still in the cabinet over the stove?" she asked, pulling the frost-encrusted hostess box out of the freezer.

"One would hope." One of Jarvis's eyebrows twitched. "Tony had several suggestions for improvements to it. I managed to dissuade him, however, so it should still be safe to use."

Wanda snorted. "We could have used you a few months ago in LA. He and Hank took the microwave apart to use some piece or other of it to make an electromagnetic field generator."

"I trust the experiment was successful?"

She shook her head. "It worked and didn't explode, but the supervillain we were trying to contain with it escaped anyway." The two of them had tried to get Captain Marvel to help them test the strength of the field and its efficacy at containing beings who could transform themselves into energy, but Monica had categorically refused to let herself be used as a test subject for a machine built out of repurposed kitchen appliances. Wanda hadn't blamed her. Much as she usually trusted her teammates, Hank and Tony's ideas of what did and didn't constitute acceptable risks to take in the name of advancing science were... very flexible. The fact that Hank still tested experiments on himself despite once having been stuck at twelve feet tall for over a month as a result probably told you all you needed to know on the subject.

Wanda had just plugged the deep fryer in and added the oil to it, planning to help Jarvis chop vegetables while the oil heated, when an electronic chirp announced that the Mansion's proximity sensors had been triggered.

Jarvis moved to set down his knife, and Wanda shook her head, forestalling him. "You're busy," she said. "I'll get the door."

The alarm system had made only a discrete chirp, which meant that it was merely notifying them of someone's approach, not informing them that something had smashed the front gate down. Nevertheless, Wanda gathered power in her left hand as she reached for the doorknob, preparing to form a hex sphere. You never knew when a giant robot or angry supervillain might attack.

She pulled open the door to reveal Agatha Harkness standing on the front steps, in a familiar old-fashioned dress that made no concessions to the cold weather. After four hundred years spent living in and around New England, snow probably didn't bother her.

"Agatha!" Wanda let the half-formed hex sphere vanish and pulled the older woman into a hug. "It's wonderful to see you. What brings you to New York?" The last she had heard, Agatha had gone back to Salem, leaving her crumbling Victorian townhouse empty. As far as she knew, Agatha hadn't even been aware that Wanda was on back on the East Coast.

But of course, this was Agatha. She had her own sources of information.

Agatha released Wanda and stepped back, smoothing her skirt. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I would see how my old student was doing. I've sensed an increase in ambient chaos energy in New York recently, and I wanted to make sure that it hadn't affected you."

Wanda shook her head. "I'm fine. Why don't you come inside? I'll make us some tea."

Deep fried twinkies could wait until later. Agatha would, she imagined, be considerably less amused by them than Jarvis was.

Several minutes later, the two of them were seated in the living room, waiting for the tea in the small china teapot Wanda had brought in to finish steeping. She had cheated just a bit and used a hex to heat the water to boiling, in order to have it ready faster, but her powers couldn't make tea leaves steep more quickly, not without ruining the tea.

"Stephen Strange," Agatha was saying. "Are you sure that's a good idea? His power is very different from yours."

Wanda shrugged slightly, feeling faintly guilty for no logical reason. "I know," she said, "but he's helped me gain more control. I needed that. Still need it," she corrected herself. Strange's ritual magic was more formal than the magic she was used to -- her hex powers had always been much more intuitive, coming as they did from a mutation rather than years of study. Learning the principles and methods of ritual sorcery had increased her own control over her hex power by a measurable amount, though.

She had used the small amounts of ritual magic she had learned from Agatha as a means of focusing her mind, and since, according to Strange, mental discipline was a vital part of the magic he performed, his training concentrated on that aspect of magic as well. Strange himself used the rituals he was teaching her for raising and channeling power, with the forms of the ritual serving, as often as not, as a contract with the forces he was channeling, but that didn't mean they couldn't be used for other purposes.

"He's also been helping me investigate and attempt to unravel a curse that's been placed on one of my teammates. It's an extremely powerful curse, and Strange has more raw power than I do, so if anyone can break it..."

Agatha's lips thinned. "More power, yes, but his path to power is not one that is open to you. If you need a teacher once again, you know my door is always open."

"I know," Wanda admitted. "But I promised Tony that I would help him, and I need Stephen's help to do that. And after the twins... I think I need to try learning some new methods. I don't want to hurt Tony by accident, the way I..." The way she'd hurt the twins. The Sorcerer Supreme, the saying went, was as powerful as the god he channeled. The only otherworldly force Wanda could channel was Chthon, and that was one thing she would never willingly do again. No amount of additional magical power was worth risking possession once more. Using Mephisto's power had possible because Mephisto, as a demon, had been chaos aligned, but that had ended badly as well. The Vishanti, the main source of Strange's power, were too closely aligned with order for their assistance to be available to her; she had attempted, under Strange's guidance, to channel their power, and found herself unable to do so.

The spells in the Book of the Vishanti were not intended for chaos magicians created to serve as avatars for Chthon.

On the other hand, this meant that Wanda did not have to yell ridiculous-sounding incantations in order to cast spells, which, so long as she was on a team with Clint, was a definite benefit.

"What sort of curse has your friend been placed under?" Agatha asked, her frown vanishing. "Perhaps I can be of assistance."

"Oh, would you mind?" Wanda set up straight, feeling a rush of something almost like relief. She couldn't discuss her worries about Tony and their lack of progress in breaking Loki curse with Strange or Clea, not when Strange was already quietly but visibly irritated at their inability to break the spell. It was woven closely enough into Tony's body that simply snapping it by brute force might hurt him, and of course, now that Tony was pregnant, any further interference with the spell that kept him bound into a female body was out of the question until the pregnancy had been safely ended.

It was terribly unfair, she thought, not for the first time, that while she and Vision had needed to resort to magic to try and have children, Tony, who was risking his future chances of ever being male again so long as he remained pregnant and who had never wanted a child in the first place, had conceived without even trying to.

She hadn't meant to mention that when she described the situation to Agatha, but once she had started talking, everything came pouring out. After all, this was Agatha, her first teacher, the one who had encouraged her to create the twins in the first place. If anyone would understand how much watching Tony's obvious misery over his pregnancy and relief at the prospect of getting an abortion hurt, it would be her.

"It must be hard for you," Agatha said gently, laying a sympathetic hand over Wanda's. "And Stephen was your doctor before the twins were born, wasn't he?"

Wanda nodded. "We don't discuss that often. I think he prefers to avoid the subject even more than I do." Despite her recent successes with controlling her power, she still didn't feel ready to discuss her greatest failure with him. Probably she never would be.

"You don't have to avoid it with me," Agatha said firmly. "There are some things men just can't understand, no matter how powerful or well-studied they are." She met Wanda's gaze, her blue eyes sharp despite the web of wrinkles surrounding them. "I want you to know that you can always come to me with your problems, Wanda dear, even if you feel you've outgrown what I have to teach you when it comes to magic. Stephen Strange may know a lot about being a sorcerer, but he knows little about being a woman."

Wanda smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I would like that."

ooOOoo

"As you can see, Mr. DeFalco, our new geothermal energy plant emits less than 100 kilograms of CO2 per MWh of electricity." Tony gestured at the powerpoint slide behind him, where the plant's energy output and emissions levels were displayed in pretty red and green bar graphs.

Even by Tony's own exacting standards, the SI San Andreas Valley energy plant was a success. He owed Vibro a debt of gratitude for this one -- it was the perfect location for a geothermal energy plant, located as it was almost directly over a major fault line and very close to SI's main west coast manufacturing plant, and if it weren't for the rock-manipulating supervillain's brief reign of earthquake-fueled terror, he might never have thought of putting the spearhead of SI's green energy program here. The underground chamber the Termite had hollowed out in order to create his secret lair full of bad sculpture had made an excellent place to position the plant's machinery and start drilling down to the underground aquifer below, where vast amounts of continually renewable heat waited to be transformed into electrical power.

He'd already taken DeFalco and the rest of the inspection team from the Department of Energy on a tour of the new California plant, and really, most of them ought to have been able to figure out information as basic as emissions output just from looking at the equipment read-outs, but investors, in Tony's experience, really liked simple, brightly colored powerpoint slides, and in this case, the federal government was SI's major investor.

"That's over twenty kilograms less than the average for this type of plant," Tony went on, pointing out something else DeFalco probably already knew. "And our highly advanced water filtration system allows us to remove all trace elements from the hot water we pump up from the aquifer, which means that our only industrial byproduct is one hundred percent pure H2O, which can be repurposed for other uses. Well, and the arsenic, mercury, and antimony we filter out of it. Right now we're using the antimony in alloys for several of the electronic circuits we assemble at our main plant and storing the rest, but our engineers are working on a way to reuse those, too."

DeFalco raised his eyebrows, looking suitably impressed. He was actually looking at the slides this time, and not at Tony's breasts, which were nearly invisible under his suit jacket anyway, thanks to expensive tailoring. "I have to say, Ms. Stark-"

"Mr. Stark," Tony interrupted, suppressing the urge to snap at the man and making himself smile instead. His back had been hurting for the past day, probably from the fight with Hydra the Avengers had gotten into just before he'd left New York. He'd actually managed to avoid being thrown into or through anything or being hit repeatedly with crowbars or forcebeams or other large, blunt objects, but maybe he'd pulled something.

Either way, it didn't put him in the mood to deal with people's inevitable confusion over his gender right now.

"Mr. Stark," DeFalco corrected himself. "I have to say, this is significantly more progress than we expected to see at this stage in the project. Your people have been working on this for what, two months?"

"Over three years, actually, though the project was put on hold for nearly a year while I was..." Tony hesitated, but there was really no way to get around the subject without making himself look bad, "away. We've stepped up the amount of resources we have invested in it considerably over the past two months, though."

"We just broke through to the aquifer last month," Dr. Avison cut in quickly. "There have been a few kinks we had to work out, but overall things have proceeded almost exactly as planned. Would you like to view the diagrams of our filtration system?"

DeFalco didn't look particularly enthused by the idea, but both of his subordinates nodded eagerly.

Tony turned to key up the slide with the filtration system diagrams, and a sharp pain stabbed at his lower back. He pressed one hand against it as he turned back to face DeFalco, keeping a bright smile on his face by force of will. He'd conducted meetings with injuries far more severe than this, and even if the pain in his back was spreading around to the front, into his lower abdomen, and starting to make him nauseous, it still wasn't as bad as feeling the ends of two broken ribs grinding together. Or feeling shrapnel shards move around in his heart as the power in his breastplate failed.

"I'd like to take credit for the filter design," Tony said, ignoring the cold sweat breaking out along his spine, "but I'm afraid it was mostly Dr. Avison's doing." He nodded at Avison, and she smiled back at him, perfectly capped teeth very white against her dark skin.

"Mr. Stark is exaggerating. His assistance in the troubleshooting phase of the project was invaluable." She turned to the two junior DoE employees, bypassing DeFalco completely, and began to explain the finer points of her filtration system, pointing out the applicable areas of the design blueprints with a laser pointer.

Tony let her talk, concentrating most of his attention on breathing slowly and not looking like he was in pain. This was more than just a pulled muscle. Something was wrong.

He needed to get out of here, before he did something embarrassing like pass out cold the next time he stood up. One public fainting fit in front of government officials had been enough to last Tony a lifetime, and keeling over now certainly wouldn't do his still-tarnished image any good.

"It sounds like you have things under control, Dr. Avison," Tony forced out. "Why don't you take our visitors to see..." what had he not shown them yet? There had to be something. "To see the filters in action."

"I don't think that will be necessary-" subordinate number one began, only to be interrupted by subordinate number two's eager,

"That would be an excellent idea. How much water do you pump through them in a day?"

There were times when Tony really loved other engineers. He stood, unobtrusively gripping the back of his chair as he did so, and ushered everyone else out of the conference room with a big, fake smile plastered over his face. Then he closed the door firmly behind DeFalco and sagged against the wall, pressing one hand to his stomach.

Very wrong. Something was very wrong.

Maybe he had torn or ruptured something inside himself yesterday. Maybe he'd been bleeding internally for the past twenty-four hours, in small enough amounts that the effects were only now catching up to him. It had happened before.

What happened when you had internal injuries while pregnant? Did that even make a difference? If he was bleeding into his abdominal cavity, that was dangerous and life-threatening regardless of what other physical abnormalities he was suffering.

Tony stood, pushing himself away from the wall and bracing himself against a rush of dizziness, and that was when he felt something hot and wet oozing between his legs.

Suddenly cold all over, Tony found himself leaving the conference room and moving quickly -- but not running -- to the executive washroom. He would have to call someone to come help him. Steve. No, not Steve. Steve was too far away.

Pepper was back in New York, holding down the fort in his absence. So was Happy. Rhodey? Rhodey had flown him out here; he could fly Tony to some place where he could get medical attention. Except that he would be no better prepared to deal with whatever this was than Tony was, and it was entirely possible that he might bleed to death internally in transit, leaving Rhodey with Tony's dead body on his hands, which would be an entirely unfair thing to do to someone.

If felt as if he were standing slightly outside himself, watching someone else lock herself in the bathroom stall and pull off her suit jacket and vest, unfasten her trousers, and--

Blood. Lots of blood.

Tony sank down to sit on the tile floor, his back against the cool metal and frosted glass blocks of the stall dividers, and pulled out his Avengers communicator, flipping it to the West Coast team's frequency.

"This is Iron Man, requesting assistance. Is anyone there?"

"Tony?" Bobbi's voice. "Do you need back up? Who are you fighting?"

"No one. I'm not-" He couldn't think of how to explain this to Bobbi. It was too humiliating and disgusting to blurt out the details to Clint's wife. "Just get me Hank, okay? I need Hank."

"Are you all right? You sound strange?"

"Look, I promise I'm not drunk or something. Get me Hank, _please."_

"All right, all right. Calm down, okay? I'll go find him."

There was an endless eternity of silence, and then Hank's voice came over the line.

"Tony? Bobbi said you needed to talk to me?"

Tony closed his eyes and told Hank everything, hating the necessity for it. Well, not everything. Just the important parts, the parts that involved pain and bleeding.

"Where are you?" Hank asked. "Never mind, we can triangulate you from the locator chip in your communicator. Just stay there, okay? We're coming to get you."

Tony leaned his head back against the glass, eyes still closed, and waited for the cavalry to arrive.

ooOOoo

Hank resisted the impulse to ask Clint if the quinjet could go any faster. He knew perfectly well that it couldn't, and bothering Clint while he was pushing the plane to the limits of its flight envelope wasn't going to help.

"We should have upgraded the engines on this thing two months ago, when Tony wanted to," he muttered.

"We would have needed to redesign the airframe to handle the increased stress, and we didn't have the money back then because I was still trying to get SI back up off the ground," Tony said quietly. "Also, don't talk about me like I'm not here."

"Just lie there quietly and focus on not hemorrhaging to death before we land," Hank told him. "Why didn't you tell anyone you were pregnant? How did you get pregnant? It shouldn't have been possible."

"Can we not ask that question?" Clint called back over his shoulder. "He got pregnant the same way everyone else does, and I don't need to hear about it."

On the one hand, Clint was being an asshole. On the other hand, Clint was not panicking, which was always a useful quality when Hank's shaky medical knowledge was the only thing standing between one of his teammates and possible death. It was the reason Hank had agreed to let him fly the quinjet -- well, that, and Clint was technically their team leader.

Why did people keep coming to him for medical help whenever Don Blake wasn't around? The "Dr." in front of his name was for a Phd in biochemistry, not a medical degree.

"Everyone on the East Coast knew," Tony protested. He was lying very still across one of the quinjet's back seats, his eyes closed, looking frighteningly small in the remains of his crumpled business suit. Hank had had to practically beg him to lie down and stay lying down; Tony hated being injured, and he also hated doing anything someone else told him to do.

Everyone on the East Coast knew. Hank had been assuming that Tony had kept it a secret from absolutely everyone, planning to quietly arrange for an abortion and pretend it never happened. "If you didn't want me working changing you back any longer, you could have just told me," he said quietly.

Tony opened his eyes, frowning up at Hank blankly. "What? Of course I still want you working on it. I trust your science a hell of a lot more than I trust Strange's magic."

"Then you might have bothered to tell me when you got pregnant, since it majorly impacts the process of changing you back. Not to mention that all the bloodwork I've already done on you is useless now." Every test Hank had run had indicated that Tony in female form was completely infertile; he shouldn't even have been menstruating or ovulating. Obviously, Hank had missed something vital.

"I was only going to be pregnant for another week. I had an appointment next Thursday at a nice, discrete private clinic to take care of things. I wouldn't even have told the East Coast team if Thor hadn't forced my hand."

"You're about to not be pregnant now," Hank told him. Pain plus bleeding plus pregnant almost certainly equaled a miscarriage. Which could be relatively harmless to Tony -- aside from the losing the baby part -- or could be extremely dangerous, depending on _why _he was miscarrying. "I'm almost certain you're having a miscarriage." How many Gs had Tony pulled in the armor during that fight yesterday? Or was his body simply rejecting the baby because it wasn't actually designed for pregnancy, or because the fetus had some inherent genetic flaw? Then the rest of Tony's statement caught up with him. "You told Thor?" Thor had many good qualities, but the ability to keep a secret was not one of them.

"No, he came to warn me not to have sex with any men." Tony's face was tense with strain, but his sarcastic little smirk was the same as ever. "Loki's spell apparently had a charming little booby trap built in."

"I know I'm going to regret asking this," Clint said, "but why did Loki want Thor to be knocked up, aside from the obvious pointing and laughing benefits?"

"It's a long and disturbing story," Tony said, closing his eyes again. He shifted slightly, wincing, and Hank once again fought the impulse to ask if Clint was _sure _that he'd pushed the throttle all the way forward.

When they landed outside the West Coast Avengers' headquarters fifteen minutes later, Tony was still pale and in obvious pain, but didn't seem any weaker or sicker than he had been when they had picked him up. Hank's worst case scenario, that he was bleeding internally from a placental abruption, was seeming less likely. Still, he vetoed Tony's attempt to walk out of the quinjet and into headquarters under his own power.

By the time Tony was lying on the examining table in the Avengers' medical center, they had acquired a small audience. Bobbi, She-Hulk, Vision, and Simon were clustered in the hallway outside, all of the demanding to know what was going on. Bobbi, who had actually taken the initial distress call from Tony, and had wanted to accompany them in the quinjet, was demanding information the most forcefully, glaring daggers at Clint through the doorway.

Someone was clearly going to be sleeping on the couch tonight. Hank himself would probably get his share of her wrath later, since he was the one who had refused to let her come; Tony hadn't needed any extra people to stare at him. He still didn't.

"We don't need spectators right now," Hank announced, kicking Bobbi's foot out of the way and trying to close the medical center's door. She-Hulk planted one big, perfectly manicured hand against the center of the door and stopped it before it could shut completely.

"We are all concerned about Iron Man," Vision started.

"Iron Man is fine," Tony snapped. Hank glanced back over his shoulder to see him propped up on one elbow, glaring poisonously at the crowd in the doorway. "Now go the hell away."

That seemed to have an effect where Hank's attempts had failed. Hank's teammates, possibly working on the assumption that if Tony was being rude, he probably wasn't dying, obediently went the hell away, leaving just Tony, Hank, and a very uncomfortable looking Clint.

"Clint," Hank said, as he started to power up the various pieces of scanning equipment they had acquired courtesy of Stark industries and Reed Richards, "go call Don Blake. Or, no, call Strange. He's the one that's been working on Tony."

"No." Tony shook his head. "Don't tell anyone on the East Coast. I don't want them to-"

Clint held both hands up, cutting him off. "I don't really care what you want, okay?" he said, in tone of voice he used when he was trying to be commanding and act like he thought a team leader should. It sounded a lot like an imitation of Steve. "Hank's not a real doctor. And since you won't go to a hospital like a sane person, your other option is to have a doctor come here."

Tony being Tony, he probably ought to attach a heart monitor to him, too, just in case. There was no telling how the repairs to Tony's damaged heart were holding up under this new strain. "If you want," Hank suggested, "we could call Beast, and he could tell everyone on the planet about it."

"Fine," Tony muttered, distinctly ungracious. "Get Strange, then. Don will just apologize more."

"He's only being a jackass because he's in pain," Clint advised Hank sagely, as he headed for the door. "Just ignore him."

Tony's shirt had to come off in order to attach the leads for the EKG machine. Unlike the last time Hank had seen him shirtless, he was wearing a sports bra beneath his white button-down. Hank, remembering the sight of Tony's naked breasts -- and the way Tony had tried to kiss him when he'd been stupid enough to paw at them -- was profoundly grateful.

This early into the pregnancy -- he'd been a woman less than three months, so he couldn't be very far along -- Tony's stomach was still flat. He didn't _look _pregnant. He didn't look like Tony, either, despite the scars that silently proclaimed his identity.

Half naked, he looked disconcertingly like a normal woman, just as he had when he'd first changed. The business suits and the armor did a lot to disguise the differences, but without them... Hank could see how Steve could have found him attractive. He wasn't beautiful, not the way Jan was, but then, no woman could survive any real comparison to Jan.

"You really think I'm having a miscarriage?"

"Yes," Hank said absently, as he aimed the first of the scanning devices at Tony. Courtesy of Reed Richards, it was a modified ultrasound machine that operated at a distance and didn't involve having to run gel-coated wands over people's bodies. It produced a clearer picture, too.

"Funny. A week from now, I'd be paying a fortune for this." Tony's voice sounded odd, his expression unreadable.

As the image on the scanner's screen began to coalesce out of the static, it belatedly to Hank that Tony might not want to see it. He tilted the screen just enough that it would be indecipherable from Tony's position, and examined the results.

"Well," he said after a moment, "you don't have an ectopic pregnancy." Which ruled out Hank's other worst case scenario, since that would have required surgery, something he wasn't equipped to perform by any stretch of the imagination. "I don't see any blood clots either." Which could case pain and bleeding just as a miscarriage could, not to mention embolisms. No blood clots also meant no placental abruption.

"I can't give you anything for the pain until Clint comes back with Strange on the line," Hank said apologetically. Now that he'd established that Tony wasn't in immediate danger of dying, he felt generally useless. Which, if this was like most cases of spontaneous abortion, he pretty much was.

"I've had worse." Considering Tony's medical history, that wasn't just empty bravado.

"It could be much worse," Hank agreed, remembering Wanda's open devastation after her twins had been erased from existence, the result of some kind of demonic magic he still wasn't sure he understood. "This is what you wanted, after all, right?"

"Yes," Tony agreed, looking away. "What I wanted."

ooOOoo

The quinjet lowered itself slowly onto the mansion's lawn, grass flattening out around it from the force of its exhaust, a slight wobble to its motion that meant that Tony wasn't flying it.

Hank, then. Hank had said he would be coming back with Tony, a sort of quiet defiance in his voice daring anyone to tell him no. Steve had been too preoccupied to care, enough so that he had nearly forgotten to tell Jan that Hank was coming. Tony was hurt. Nothing else anyone from the West Coast team had had to say had seemed important.

The entire team was gathered on the Mansion's back lawn to watch the quinjet arrive, just as they had not quite three months ago, when Tony had first returned from California. Jan, Steve suspected, was there to prove to herself, and possibly to everyone else, that she wasn't bothered by Hank's presence. Don Blake, doctor's bag in hand, was ready to whisk Tony off to the Mansion's infirmary as soon as he stepped off the aircraft. Sam was there because Steve had asked him to be, because he needed someone to keep him from pacing back and forth with nervous tension and snapping at everyone. Wanda hadn't given a reason for coming, but from the way she was fiddling nervously, rolling a tiny ball of chaos energy around her fingers, Steve assumed she was there out of concern for Tony.

The last time Tony had arrived here via quinjet, he'd come out wearing his armor, changes completely hidden by red and gold metal. This time, he was wearing a different sort of armor, the three-piece business suit concealing almost any hint of feminine curves. It didn't manage to make him look any less like a woman, though, not when his face and smaller frame were so clearly visible, nor did it hide the white-knuckled grip he had on his briefcase.

Steve, noting how tightly he was gripping the case's handles, knew it must contain Tony's armor. He'd gotten it stripped down to the point of fitting inside a medium-sized briefcase again last month, and had been extremely smug about it.

He looked... tired, but otherwise all right.

Steve wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this, wasn't Tony stiff-shouldered and refusing to meet his eyes. Tony on a stretcher, maybe, or Tony visibly ill.

He could still remember the horrible gurgling rasp of Tony' breathing, when they'd found him again last year, after two long months spent wondering whether he was alive or dead. He'd been so angry, then. He'd spent a lot of the past two years being angry at Tony. For the drinking, for disappearing, for not taking care of himself, for not caring _about _himself when other people did. And then, afterwards, for running away to California and hiding from the rest of them, and for the dangerous and willfully illegal means he had used to get his stolen technology back.

He'd refused Steve's attempts to help him, the fact that Steve cared about him clearly not enough to make a dent in whatever funk he'd been stuck in, and when Steve had practically begged him to reconsider his actions over the stolen armor, he'd refused to listen then, too. That had hurt as much as discovering that his government, his country, had betrayed him, maybe more.

He hadn't wanted Steve's child, either, or to be married to him. It had been ridiculous to offer, to expect that he would.

Part of being an adult, though, was getting over being hurt and moving on.

Looking at him now, Steve found himself unable to move, unable to think of anything to say. He wasn't sure whether he ought to apologize for the trauma he'd helped inflict on Tony, or be relieved that the pregnancy -- and the attendant threat to Tony's health -- was over.

Don stepped forward before he could, taking Tony by the arm and leading him away from the quinjet, asking Hank a series of questions that were mostly inaudible from where Steve was standing.

Hank's answers were equally low-voiced, and Steve was glad for it. He didn't want to hear the details. All that mattered was whether Tony was all right.

"He looks okay to me," Sam observed. And then, "He's not going to want you hovering over him."

"I don't hover."

"Sure you don't." Sam put one hand on Steve's shoulder, pushing him toward the Mansion. "This isn't your fault, you know," he added quietly, after a moment. "I mean, aside from the part where you should have known better than to get someone pregnant in the first place. Stark's never been a woman before, but I know damn well you've slept with women before."

That was a very good point, and one that Steve had been kicking himself over for the past week. "In what way does that make it not my fault?"

"You didn't know that pregnancy would be dangerous for Tony, or even that it was possible." Wanda fell into step with them, on Steve's left. "Strange and I didn't think it was possible, before we knew the full extent of Loki's spell. And you certainly didn't cause him to miscarry."

"I could have forbade him to answer Avengers priority alerts until things had been... dealt with. What if the fight the other day-"

"Cap," Wanda interrupted, "if you had actually told Tony that he couldn't be Iron Man because he was pregnant, I would have had to hit you on behalf of all women everywhere. I stayed in costume until I was eight months pregnant." She looked away, staring down at the grass, and Steve tried and failed to think of something to say.

It hadn't even occurred to him how painful it must have been for Wanda to have a teammate who was pregnant. Especially, considering how difficult it had been for her to conceive, one who didn't want to be pregnant and wasn't planning on keeping the baby.

How could he not have thought of that? Worry over Tony was no excuse. Wanda was his teammate and his friend. This thing with Tony, whatever it was, was not an excuse to neglect the rest of his team.

"I heard about that," Sam was saying. "Sorry. I know sympathy's pretty useless, but-"

Wanda shook her head, offering him a weak smile. "It's all right. There was nothing anyone could have done. I-" she hesitated, then, "They weren't really real, anyway."

They'd been real to Wanda, though. And her children had seemed pretty real to Steve, when he had visited her and Vision. "That doesn't mean you didn't love them," he said. It was relatively useless as attempts at comfort went, but he couldn't simply say nothing.

Wanda was saved from having to reply to his probably-trite platitudes by their arrival at the Mansion's back door, where they caught up with Tony, Don, and Hank.

"...should have been me," Don was saying to Tony. "Considering how much I owe you for that, you're pretty much entitled to free medical care forever."

"If Loki had actually succeeded in his plan to kidnap and forcibly impregnate a female Thor, what would have happened to you?" Hank asked, frowning faintly.

Don shuddered. "I don't really want to know."

Tony smirked at him, the expression almost convincing. "Trust me, you really don't. Though I think I speak for all of us when I say that both you and your alter-ego would make extremely good-looking women."

"One of the differences between you and me is that you actually think about these things," Hank informed Tony.

"That's because you don't notice any women other than-" Tony broke off with an abruptness that let Steve know that Jan was right behind them. "Can we go inside and get this over with? I swear I really am fine. Hank checked me out back in California."

"Hank's not actually a doctor," Don reminded him.

"I keep telling people that," Hank said.

Tony ignored him. "I couldn't exactly go to a hospital. If this hit the media, whatever shreds of credibility and respect I still have in the business world would be gone. I already have breasts. I don't need people to start writing me off as a slut again. Sleeping around is different when you're a woman; I don't think SI's stock could handle it."

Tony was trying hard to pretend that everything was normal, that he was fine. Steve would have been more likely to believe the act if Tony had looked him in the eye even once since stepping off the quinjet, or even said hello.

Once inside, Don limped determinedly toward the infirmary, Hank and Tony trailing in his wake, and Steve and the others were left standing awkwardly in the hall.

"At least Tony seems all right," Jan said, after a long and painful silence.

"I hope so." Steve wished he could be sure. He wished he could stop worrying that each next disaster would be the last straw that made Tony snap again.

"He's tough." Sam was staring down the hallway at Tony and the others' departing backs, with his head cocked to one side slightly the way he did when he was thinking about something. "I don't know why I didn't see the two of you coming. As a girl, he's just your type."

"Tony's nothing like anyone I've dated before."

"He argues with you," Sam held up one finger, "he won't put up with you trying to boss him around," another finger, "and you think you need to save him." He flourished three fingers at Steve as if they were evidence of something.

Steve stared flatly at him, folding his arms across his chest. He had no illusions that he had any ability to 'save' Tony, if indeed he needed saving -- past events were proof enough of that.

Sam, unfortunately, was immune to the kind of stern looks that worked on most -- well, some -- of the other Avengers. He always had been. "He's a step up from Diamondback, anyway," he said.

Steve chose not to rise to the bait, resisting the impulse to ask what had been wrong with Rachel.

Tony was out of sight now, the infirmary door having closed firmly behind him. Going in after him wouldn't contribute anything, Steve knew. He'd only be in the way.

Still, the infirmary was large -- surely there was room for one extra person in there.

"Instead of standing out here worrying," Jan said, taking hold of his arm. "You can come watch fashion week with me. They should be broadcasting the taped recordings of last night's runway shows right about now, and I missed at least half of them because I was too busy backstage to go out and watch."

Steve shook his head. He actually enjoyed watching fashion shows with Jan, under normal circumstances, but right now, all he wanted was to see Tony up close, to make certain that he was really all right. "I don't... I'm going to go check on Tony."

Jan nodded, unsurprised. "Tell Hank I don't mind if he stays for a while. If Don and Tony need him here."

Considering the circumstances, that was major concession. "I will," Steve said.

"Great." Jan flashed him a brief, unconvincing smile. "Wanda. You can come critique other people's designs with me. It's always useful to have a second opinion."

"Fashion isn't really my thing," Wanda began, shooting a pleading look at Steve and Sam.

"You two have fun with that," Sam said, smiling blandly, before he could be roped into watching a fashion show as well.

When Steve entered the infirmary, Tony was buttoning his shirt and casting longing glances at the door. When he saw Steve standing in the doorway, he stiffened, the expression in his eyes shifting from impatient to trapped.

"Since we've established that I haven't sustained any permanent damage, can I leave now?"

Don exchanged glances with Hank, frowning thoughtfully. "You gave him misoprostol?"

"I did everything you told me to do." Hank hesitated, grimacing. "So, is that... it?"

"The incredibly disturbing bleeding has stopped," Tony said, in a monotone. "Please tell me that means this is over, I'm no longer pregnant, and we can never discuss this again."

Bleeding? No, Steve decided. He didn't want to know.

There hadn't been a lot of bleeding involved, had there? Surely Tony would look worse if he'd suffered significant bloodloss.

"You are no longer pregnant." Don made a vague gesture towards Tony's shoulder with one hand, as if he'd been about to touch him and then thought better of it. "Normally, I would recommend counseling under these circumstances, but-"

"I had an appointment scheduled next week to accomplish essentially this," Tony said flatly. "I'm fine."

Steve winced. He'd been dealing just fine with the prospect of Tony getting an abortion, but something about hearing him say it so bluntly, especially while he sat there looking so wan and tired... Maybe it was better this way, though. Losing the baby on his own was more natural, and probably less likely to result in horrible complications.

Maybe Tony would feel less guilty about it this way. He hadn't been acting guilty -- held been acting as if next week's upcoming medical procedure didn't bother him at all, aside from the part where it involved being pregnant until then -- but Steve knew he had to be, whether he was acknowledging it or not. Tony was very good at guilt.

"All right, no counseling, then." Don coughed, an oddly hesitant little sound that Steve couldn't imagine coming from Thor. "You need to wait several days before..." he glanced at Steve, then away, "engaging in any sexual, um, activities."

"I think I can manage that." Tony's voice was still completely devoid of animation, but Steve thought there might be a flicker of wry humor there. He turned to look at Don and Hank, giving Steve a view of the back of his head. "Thank you. Both of you. For, um, letting me keep this out of a hospital and therefore out of the press."

Don looked deeply uncomfortable. "I owe you. We both do."

"Will you and Thor please stop apologizing to me?" Exasperation had leaked into his husky mezzo-soprano voice now -- odd, but at some point in the past few weeks, the lighter pitch had stopped sounding strange to Steve, had become just Tony's voice.

"I'm sor-" Don broke off. "Right."

"I wouldn't wish the kind of press this would have gotten you on anyone." Hank said. He held up one finger. "But if you ever call in for emergency backup again and refuse to tell anyone what's wrong with you until we get there... I thought you were dying."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." He actually did sound contrite, which wasn't always the case when Tony apologized for concealing information. "I know you hate being kept out of the loop."

"If I have to be back-up, I need to at least be well-informed back-up, or I'm no use to you guys at all." Hank looked away, arms folded across his chest. Pointing out that Hank himself had been the one who'd put the 'support and back-up only' conditions on his return to the Avengers roster would have been needlessly cruel, especially since doing so had been one of the first pieces of responsible self-restraint Hank had shown in a while.

He knew the others didn't trust him out in the field anymore, not until he'd proven his ability to handle the stress of superhero work and stay stable, and rubbing it in wasn't necessary.

"I know," Tony said again. "I promise I'll keep you updated on anything that might affect breaking the curse from now on." He stood, edging away from the examining table and toward the door and Steve. "I've got… I don't even want to think about how much work I have to catch up on. I walked straight out of a meeting with federal officials. I hope Dr. Avison was able to keep them distracted; I'm not sure she's ever going to forgive me."

"Don't let him near his power tools or his office," Don said, to Steve. "He doesn't actually need to be lying down, but he does need to be resting. It's only been three days. I know SI gives up to a week's worth of medical leave for this."

Steve nodded. "I'll make sure he _actually _rests."

Tony practically stalked out into the hallway, shoulders stiff. "I can take care of myself, Steve," he said, when the door had fallen closed behind them. "I haven't suddenly become fragile or breakable just because I got pregnant and had a miscarriage. I've recovered just fine from far worse. I don't need you to coddle me."

"I want to take care of you." Steve could feel his ears start to burn as soon as he said it. He sounded like the worst kind of romantic clichО, and Tony had undoubtedly both heard and uttered enough romantic clichОs in his life to know that.

Tony stared at him, the irritation Steve had expected to see completely absent from his expression. "That may be the sappiest thing anyone has ever said to me," he said, lips curving into a slightly-crooked smile.

"I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy," Steve said, heat flooding his entire face and neck. "I can't help it."

"That's why I love you."

He said it so casually that it was a moment before Steve noticed that he'd said "I" instead of the usual "we."

Just because he said it, Steve reminded himself, didn't mean he meant anything serious by it. They were friends as well as lovers. People loved their friends. Just because what he felt was a lot bigger and more complicated than simple friendship-with-benefits didn't mean that was what Tony felt, or meant.

Even knowing that, the words still started a warm glow somewhere in his chest.

Not warm enough, though, that he didn't notice that Tony was leading them in the direction of his lab instead of his bedroom, the library, or some other place suited to resting.

"Don was very specific about keeping you away from the armor right now," he reminded him.

Tony frowned, clearly thinking about protesting, then sighed. "I can't just sit around doing nothing."

"Jan's looking for someone to watch fashion week with her."

"Two of my exes are runway models and one is a designer." Tony's voice was wry again. "I avoid fashion week."

He'd never cared about Tony's numerous exes one way or the other before they had started sleeping together, beyond a general envy that they got to have sex with Tony and he didn't. Thinking of them now made him want to back Tony against the wall and kiss him, take him to bed and erase every trace of his former lovers from his body.

That, according to Don, was off-limits, too.

"I doubt there's much dating fashion models left in my future anymore," Tony went on. His lips quirked. "Disappointingly few supermodels are into other women, and disappointingly few of the men I care about are into me." He fell silent, looking down at the floor, and ran a hand through his hair, turning it into a disheveled mess.

He looked uncertain, almost afraid suddenly. Steve was reaching over to put a hand on his back when Tony's next words stopped him.

"I thought I was dying, you know, right before I called Hank. I-" He glanced at Steve, then away. "I wanted to call you, but you were still in New York and I knew I needed help right away, but I still wanted... I had this crazy idea that you being there would somehow make things all right."

"I'm just glad you called someone at all," Steve told him. He couldn't think of anything else to say, couldn't think of how to tell Tony that he could always call him. He wished he _could _make things all right for Tony just by being there. The memory of how utterly useless and powerless he'd been when Tony had been drinking was still painfully raw proof of how much of a fantasy that was. He could still taste the despair of that last meeting in the hotel room, when he'd tried to help and Tony had sent him away. Tony had refused all help, then. Refused it over the matter of getting his armor back, too.

The fact that he was asking for it now had to mean something, right?

Tony drew in a deep, slightly shaky breath. "And it made me think, that... I was hoping that... does that offer you made me still stand?"

Steve frowned at him. "What offer?"

"When you-" Tony broke off, almost stumbling over the word, then started again. "When you found out that I was pregnant and you said that you would marry me, did you really mean that, or were you just offering because it was the right thing to do?"

"I-" Steve started, and then his throat closed up. He shook his head, silently, raising one hand to touch Tony's face, then letting his palm slide down from Tony's jaw to the base of his neck, Tony's skin warm under his hand.

Tony had gone utterly still, his eyes wide. Steve could feel his pulse beating against his fingers.

"Both," Steve managed to force out, after far too long a silence.

"Oh," Tony said, quietly. "I thought you were just being noble."

Steve shook his head again, suddenly abruptly aware that a hallway probably wasn't the proper place for this conversation. But then, they'd had their last conversation about this in the hallway, too. "I meant it," he said, wishing he'd thought about this more, that he had some plan for how to do this properly.

"Oh," Tony repeated. "I'm not carrying your child anymore. You don't have any responsibility to-"

Steve bent down and kissed him, slowly and gently, without any real force. Just enough of a kiss to silence him.

When he drew back, Tony was staring at him, an almost painful sort of wonder in his eyes. "Is that a yes?"

"I don't think either of us has actually asked anything," Steve pointed out. He probably ought to go down on one knee, he thought. That was the way people always did it in books and movies.

"I'll ask it, then. I'm pretty sure I'm stuck like this for the foreseeable future. I may still be legally male, but SI has lawyers who could probably take my DNA test results and use them to make the state attorney's office cry. Will you marry me?"

The press was going to eat them both alive, Steve thought. And then, _Tony wants to marry me. To spend the rest of his life with me._

"Yes," he said, before he could lose his nerve. "Yes, I'll marry you."

This time, Tony was the one who kissed him.

ooOOoo


	5. Chapter 5

_Title_: An Ever Fixed Mark

_Author_: seanchai and elspethdixon

_Rating_: PG-13

_Pairings_/Characters: Steve/Tony, Jan, Hank, Wanda, assorted other Avengers

_Labels_: gender-swap

_Warnings_: This fic deals with pregnancy, abortion, and miscarriage.

* * *

**Part Five:**

They were supposed to have been discussing hiring Rhodey on as a contractor to help perform some tests on SI's newest aircraft designs. Those discussions, and anything else even approximating doing any kind of work, had stopped instantly the moment Tony had announced his and Steve's decision.

Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy all stared at him blankly, until Pepper finally broke the silence.

She raised her eyebrows at him, arms folded across her chest, and pointed out, "The media is going to eat you alive."

Tony winced. "I was hoping we could keep this from turning into a media circus." It was probably a futile hope, but surely people were eventually going to get tired of seeing him on television. Maybe they would get lucky, and some movie star would allow herself to be photographed naked between now and next month, or the President would turn out to have a secret illegitimate child -- though if there were even the slightest possibility of the latter, someone would have dug it up long ago, before the election.

Pepper did not actually roll her eyes, but Tony could sense her desire to do so as clearly as if she had. "You're getting married to Captain America. Of course it's going to be a media circus."

Tony fought down the impulse to snap at her. It wasn't her fault that he and Steve were both national --international, to be honest -- celebrities, or that J.J. Jameson was probably going to trumpet Captain America's wedding to a formerly male and infamously debauched businessman as a sign of the moral decay of America. Or maybe not. One could never tell with Jameson; sometimes he displayed surprising flashes of liberal open-mindedness when you least expected them. Well, in between railing against superheroes as dangerous criminals and threats to public safety and printing the most unflattering photos of Hilary Clinton he could find.

The Bugle had been a strong backer of McCain up until he'd selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. Then Jameson had run a page-long editorial on how shooting moose had nothing whatsoever to do with running a country and switched to supporting Obama, to pretty much universal shock and amazement.

Regardless, he wasn't going to miss the opportunity to boost circulation with front page pictures of Captain America's wedding, and neither was any other major news outlet. It was enough to make Tony seriously consider eloping to Vegas, except that a) Steve would refuse and b) Jan and Jarvis would both kill him.

Rhodey, leaning back in Tony's desk chair with the newly re-modeled helmet to the War Machine armor cradled in both hands, was smirking openly at him. "Are you going to be wearing a wedding dress?"

Tony shook his head, seizing on the distraction with, not relief exactly, but something close to it. "No. I'll be wearing a tuxedo or suit of some kind, whatever Jan decides to inflict on me. In black, not white, before you ask. She's apparently designing it to compliment Steve's mess dress."

"The Civil War re-enactor-style one? With the red lapels?" Rhodey snickered. "He's going to jingle when he walks. I hope he's already ordered the miniature copies of all his six hundred medals, because some of those aren't going to be available at the nearest base PX. Do they even make a miniature of the Croix de Guerre?"

"No," Tony said. "I checked." Just the memory of Steve's crimson-faced embarrassment at the idea of wearing _all _his countless military honors was enough to make Tony's worries about whatever Jan was going to make him wear bearable. "He's going to have to wear the full sized version."

"Who's going to give you away?" Happy asked. His poker-face was as perfect as ever, but Tony thought he sounded pleased. "Because if you need someone to, boss, you know that I-"

"We're not doing a big wedding," Tony interrupted. "We'll be in a courtroom. Nobody's giving me away. You'd be the first person I'd ask after Jarvis, though, if I needed someone to."

"Does that mean there's not going to be a sword bridge? I've waited my whole life to smack Captain America on the ass with a sword."

Rhodey, Tony felt, sounded entirely too gleeful about the whole thing. He was probably already planning to throw Tony a terribly humiliating bachelor party -- if you could have one of those without alcohol. Luckily, tradition demanded that whatever party Clint and Sam threw for Steve would have to be separate, so at least their fun wouldn't be spoiled by Tony inability to drink. Or rather, inability to stop drinking. He was perfectly capable of picking up that first glass; he'd proven that over and over. "Steve's ass belongs to me now," he said, shoving those thoughts aside and grinning at Rhodey. "You had your shot at one of us, and you chose not to go for it."

"Smart man," Pepper commented dryly.

ooOOoo

"You don't think you're jumping into this a little quickly?" Sam ducked under Steve's punch and backed away from him, moving on the balls of his feet. "You've been seeing each other for what, two months?"

"I'm more sure about this than I've been of anything in a long time. It just," Steve spun on his right foot and kicked out at Sam with his left leg, only to have Sam block the blow with his forearm at the last moment. "It feels right."

Sparring with Sam was both less playful and a better work out than sparring with most of the rest of the Avengers; with Wanda and Clint, Steve still thought of himself as a teacher, and probably always would, and with Tony, sparring had a way of turning into something else entirely. It had been the same way with Sharon, and with Rachel.

Steve didn't have to hold back, knowing that Sam was the same height as he was and closer to the same mass than either Tony or Clint. He didn't have to pull punches, because Sam wasn't going to let Steve hurt him. Not like Tony, who after years of hand-to-hand combat training still had a habit of leaving himself wide open to blows that he ought to have dodged or blocked, because the armor would have been able to absorb them.

He threw a jab at Sam's torso, already knowing which direction he was going to turn in order to let the punch slip past him, and followed it up in quick left hook that connected solidly with Sam's jaw.

Sam made a face at him, rubbing his chin, and said, "If you get last minute cold feet and try to run away to California like you did with Bernie, Hawkeye's just gonna send you right back. And he'll never let you live it down." His strike landed cleanly on Steve's right shoulder, and he rolled easily back to his feet when Steve grabbed onto his arm and used the momentum of the blow to throw him.

"I won't get cold feet. Why does everyone keep second guessing me?" Steve launched another spin kick at Sam's upper torso, only to find his ankle grabbed firmly in both Sam's hands.

"Because a couple of months ago, you and Tony were barely even talking to each other, and now you're getting married," Sam said, and kicked Steve's foot out from under him, releasing his ankle just in time to let him fall flat on his back. "And that's not even touching the part where he started out as a guy."

Well, if Sam wanted to play rough... Steve didn't even bother to roll back to his feet; he simply thrust one of his legs between Sam's and brought him down that way, then lunged for him. "You know that doesn't matter to me," he reminded Sam, once he had him securely in a hammerlock.

Sam grudgingly tapped out, and Steve let him go. "What if he changes back?" he asked, climbing back to his feet and rubbing ostentatiously at his shoulder. "What are you going to do then?"

"Be happy for him," Steve said flatly. Sam knew gender wasn't important to Steve, even if he tended to forget because Steve had previously been involved almost solely with women; he couldn't actually think Steve had only fallen in love with Tony because he had a female body.

"Even if it means your marriage won't be legal anymore?" Sam raised his eyebrows, the question serious rather than challenging.

"Then we'd get to be a historic, precedent-setting court case." Being a nationally famous living legend had to be good for something, and Steve wasn't above using Captain America's reputation and name in order to get a more desirable outcome. Not for something like this, where it would benefit countless other people as well as Tony and himself.

"Does Tony know you're already planning your appeal to the state supreme court on his behalf?" Sam shook his head, grinning, and answered his own question. "Nevermind, he's marrying you. He probably does."

Steve didn't dignify that with an answer. "So... you're okay with being my best man, right?" he asked, as the two of them picked up their towels and left the gym.

"I'd be offended if you asked anyone else. I thought Tony said it was just going to a legal thing in a courtroom, though. Have you talked to him about this?"

Several times, but Tony's stubbornness was legendary at SI for a reason. It would probably take at least another week to wear him down. Steve believed in persistence, though. "If Tony really thinks the two of us are going to get married without dozens of Avengers and former Avengers and half of SHIELD coming and expecting a giant party..." He shook his head. "He knows perfectly well that people are going to expect us to have some kind of ceremony in addition to the legal element. The question isn't whether people are going to come and throw rice at us, it's whether or not they're going to come in costume."

"So," Sam said, after considering that for a second, "are you going to have one of those sword bridge things?"

ooOOoo

"I suppose it's too late to talk you into eloping to Vegas?" Tony's hair was a mess, half of it sticking up and the rest hanging in his face, and the mark Steve's had left at the base of his throat was already turning a nice, incriminating red. He wasn't going to bother to wear a shirt with a collar that would cover it tomorrow, either; Tony didn't care who knew that he'd been having sex. In fact, Steve was starting to suspect that he _liked _leaving obvious signs of what he'd been up to on display. Or was that part of Tony's 'careless playboy who couldn't possibly be Iron Man and wasn't about to outbid your company into the ground' persona?

"If we're getting married, I want to do it right," Steve told him. "And anyway, Jan would kill us. _Sam _would kill us. He's already threatened to have Clint drag me back here by my heels if I panic and run off to the West Coast."

Tony pushed himself up on one elbow, the sheet sliding further down his naked torso to pool at his hips. "If you do that, _I'll _drag you back here. Or I could drag you to Caesar's Palace. They like me there. I always make sure to spend enough on gratuitous room service bills to make up for cleaning them out at the tables. Or, I did." He made a wry face. "I generally accomplished that by buying incredibly expensive champagne by the case."

"We're not getting married in Vegas," Steve said patiently. Tony didn't actually mean it, he knew, but given too much encouragement, he might decide to do it just for the hell of it. Booking the honeymoon suite in a luxury hotel at a moment's notice was next to impossible for most people, but money was no object for Tony.

"Rhodey wants to have full military honors."

Steve let himself fall back onto his back, smiling up at the ceiling. He was not going to admit liked the idea; this was important, Tony was important, and since they weren't getting married in church, it would be nice to have at least one formal ritual to solemnize the occasion. "He just wants a chance to hit both of us on the ass with swords."

"Pepper's going to help Jan organize it and send out invitations," Tony said, his voice dry. "Happy wants me to... okay, Happy's suggestions are actually good, but that doesn't mean this isn't going to be the most embarrassing experience of our lives."

"It can't possibly be more embarrassing than some of the things that have happened to us while in costume."

"Or out of costume," Tony muttered. "Remind me to tell Pepper that Morgan is definitely not invited."

Considering that Tony's cousin had sold him out to supervillains at least twice and had tried put the moves on him the last time they'd met, no, he probably didn't merit a wedding invitation. Very few of Tony's acquaintances outside the superhero community and Stark Industries did, Steve suspected. Especially not the people who had gone to fancy parties with Tony and watched cheerfully from the sidelines as he drank himself into oblivion. "That guy from the charity ball isn't invited, either."

"Who? Oh, him. Why would he be there? He's nobody important."

"No," Steve agreed.

"Clint thinks that you should get married in costume."

"I know. I want to do this without masks. I'm not marrying Iron Man; I'm marrying you. And anyway, the newspapers would go nuts over that."

"They'll go nuts anyway. You look very good in costume. All that tight leather." Tony smirked at him, eyes lowering to stare at the fold of sheet covering Steve's groin and leaving no doubt as to _which _part of Steve he thought looked good in tight leather. His smirk faded a bit then, and he added, voice still light, "Hank thinks this is a bad idea and we're going to jinx our relationship and doom ourselves forever."

Yes, clearly it was Hank who was worried, and not Tony, Steve thought affectionately. "Hank's experiences with marriage are not universal," he said firmly.

Tony shrugged one shoulder, the motion making his breasts move interestingly. "Just so you know," he said, "you still have the right to haul off and slug me if we ever get into a fight." He offered Steve a familiar slightly-lopsided grin, the wry one he always used when he was being self-deprecating, totally oblivious to Steve's internal wince of horror at the thought of hitting someone I anger who was non-superpowered and nearly a hundred pounds lighter than he was. "I need some sense knocked into me occasionally."

"Adults don't solve their problems by hitting each other," Steve said, choosing to ignore the times that he and Clint had done exactly that. "They talk to one another." He hesitated, then, added, "You can talk to me when you have problems, you know. When something is wrong."

Tony glanced away, fiddling with a fold of the sheet. "I know. I'm trying." He looked up again, seductive smirk back in place, and leaned down, putting one deceptively delicate hand on Steve's shoulder. "Let's talk later," he said directly into Steve's ear, his voice low and husky; Tony knew perfectly well what it did to Steve when he sounded like that, and took shameless advantage of it. Tony's tongue ran along the edge of Steve's ear, warm and wet. "I can think of better things to do now," he whispered, breath cool against the wet patch of skin he'd made. The he pulled back, eyes once again dropping to Steve's crotch and the evidence of what exactly that particular tone of voice was accomplishing.

He _was _trying, Steve knew. Or at least, he hoped. He let the subject drop, along with wedding plans and whatever their teammates thought, and leaned up to close the distance between them again, capturing Tony's with his. His hands fit perfectly around the slim curve of Tony's waist, like they belonged there.

Tony slid over and forwards, settling his weight on top of Steve. "I really love the super soldier serum," he observed, and then set about demonstrating how much.

ooOOoo

Agatha's house had been a sanctuary for Wanda once; she had learned so much there, and Agatha had been there for her through her marriage, her pregnancy, through losing the twins, losing Vision.

It should have felt like a sanctuary still. It was Wanda's own worries and insecurities that made her feel uneasy here, in Agatha's parlor. Her own fears that made the shadows that gathered in the candlelit room feel ominous.

Losing her had been like losing a parent all over again, and her return had been an unexpected, almost miraculous gift. Without Agatha's intervention, Wanda would never have been able to break away from Immortus's control. For that, and for the memories of her children that Agatha had returned to her, she would always be in the older woman's debt.

Painful as it was to remember everything she had lost, she wouldn't have given up the memories for anything. If their own mother didn't remember them, then it truly would have been as if the twins weren't real, had never really existed.

Sometimes, she almost hoped they hadn't been. Hoped they'd only been her imagination and will manifesting itself through her powers, the way Agatha had claimed, without a reality of their own -- if they weren't real, that meant they wouldn't have suffered when Mephisto had taken them.

She had thought she was getting over it, moving on, but Tony's brief pregnancy had brought all of the memories, all of the grief back.

"Do you think it's possible that my powers somehow affected Tony?" she asked Agatha, staring down at the shifting reflections in her teacup. Agatha's tea service was as comfortingly familiar as her house, the roses painted on the side of the fragile china cups worn and faded with age. "That I ill-wished him somehow? I never wanted anything bad to happen to my friends, but there are times when it seems as if the people around me are cursed."

Tony hadn't wanted to be pregnant. Had she resented him for that, for rejecting something she had wanted to badly? Or maybe she had subconsciously let her powers influence him, hexed him without intending to, because part of her had wanted to help him.

That was an even more frightening thought, somehow. A hex placed on Tony's unborn child could have done far worse to him than a relatively uncomplicated miscarriage. She could have given him an ectopic pregnancy, eclampsia, made his miscarriage turn septic, all with the best of intentions.

She had thought she was gaining more control over her powers, working with Strange, but if there was any chance she had caused this...

Or maybe her ill-luck powers were interfering in an even simpler way: why had she and Strange, with all the power and knowledge at Strange's disposal, been unable to break the curse that kept Tony trapped in a female body? What if the nature of her magic -- chaos based, just like Loki's -- was actually feeding the curse somehow instead of weakening it?

Agatha was frowning, shaking her head. "You have a good heart, child. You would not wish your friend ill, no matter how much his circumstances pained you, how unfair you felt them to be."

"I wouldn't do it on purpose, but you know as well as I do that my powers haven't always been under my control."

Agatha raised her eyebrows, her eyes in their nest of wrinkles suddenly sharp. "What does Stephen think?"

"I... haven't mentioned it to him," she admitted. Strange had only reluctantly agreed to take her on as a student, and his own powers were so perfectly controlled. Clea's, too -- the other woman had been using magic her entire life, much as Wanda had, but Clea was centuries older than she was, with far more experience.

Admitting to both of them that she might have been influencing things around her without meaning to was... she had nearly mentioned the subject several times, but had never quite been able to make herself do it.

Agatha added another spoonful of sugar to her tea, nodding sympathetically. "Stephen can be very intimidating. He holds himself to an impossible standard and expects everyone else to follow it. I suspect it's why he usually doesn't take pupils."

Was it an impossible standard? She had been making progress, she knew, and she'd been certain that with enough work, she could attain the kind of control that seemed to come so effortlessly to Strange, regardless of the fact that her powers worked differently.

She took a sip of her tea. It was tepid now -- she had been holding the cup for at least fifteen minutes, not drinking, just letting it warm her hands. Under the sugar, it had a bitter aftertaste. "He does hold himself to a high standard," she admitted. "It's driving him crazy that we haven't been able to break the curse on Tony. We thought at first that the... pregnancy... meant that it was evolving, tightening its hold, but it turned out to be a trap Loki had built into the spell all along." She shook her head. "Loki likes double-crosses and traps, but his spells are never that complex. Strange suspects another sorcerer's hand in it, and I agree. Something about the spell feels... familiar."

The nagging sense of familiarity had bothered her from the beginning; some elements of the curse were similar to the magic that she had used on herself -- under Agatha's guidance -- to conceive the twins.

Agatha frowned. "Familiar in what way?"

"I'm not sure. I keep thinking that I may be imagining it, because Loki's powers and my powers are both chaos based, but I sense Chthon's touch in it. Loki's a chaos deity, but Chthon is raw chaos itself, and the magic wrapped around Tony is raw chaos. That's part of what makes it so difficult to counter. And the structure of the spell..." She took another sip of her tea, resisting the urge to wrinkle her nose at the taste, then set it aside. "It feels more like witchcraft than sorcery."

More like witchcraft. Like the spell Agatha had shown her to make her own womb conceive when she shouldn't have been able to.

She yawned, suddenly tired, her eyelids feeling heavy. The shadows dancing at the edges of the candle light seemed to thicken, reaching out across the carpet toward her.

The air felt wrong. There was chaos energy here. Energy much stronger than her own aura, stronger than the elevated levels of chaos power she had sensed in the air over the past month. That was why she hadn't felt comfortable in the room at first.

Powerful magic had been worked here. Dark magic.

In Agatha's house? Who would dare invoke the likes of Chthon or Dormammu in Agatha's house?

"Like witchcraft?" Agatha pursed her lips. "You should have come to me, child. I know more about witchcraft than any woman alive. I have studied it for over three hundred years."

"I should have," Wanda admitted, feeling a pang of guilt. She had drifted away from her old teacher recently, had... wait, no, there was dark magic in the room. Why was she letting herself get distracted?

She shook her head, standing, and felt a wave of dizziness that left her clutching at the arm of Agatha's overstuffed Victorian couch. "There's something here," she said. "In your house. Something dangerous. Something's been summoned here."

Agatha smiled gently at her. "I know it has, dear. I summoned him." She was standing now, one hand on Wanda's arm -- when had she moved? "Sit back down and finish your tea. You're perfectly safe. I've made certain of it."

Summoned him? Summoned who? Safe from what? Wanda pulled away, yanking her arm free from the other woman's grasp.

This wasn't right. Why couldn't she _think?_

"What's in the tea?"

Agatha was still smiling at her. "Just something to help you relax. I couldn't have you interfering in the ritual. Not after all the trouble I went through to set up another vessel for chaos power and gain possession of a copy of the Darkhold scrolls."

"You drugged me!" Another vessel. Another vessel for whatever she had-- God, was she summoning _Chthon?_

"I had hoped you could remain innocent of my master's plans until they had already come to pass. It seems Stephen and I taught you too well."

"Master's?" Wanda forced back the dizziness from the drugged tea, thanking whatever powers watched over witches and mutants that she had only taken a few sips of it, and raised her hands, letting her chaos power gather around them.

"You do not think it was your power alone that brought me back?" Agatha's familiar face was suddenly sinister in the pinkish-red light of Wanda's power. Wanda stared at her in horror, feeling as if the floor had dropped out from under her feet. "I was returned to life to serve a purpose, to serve him. His will brought me back into existence."

She couldn't concentrate well enough for a complicated spell, but a simple hex sphere could pull the heavy curtains down over Agatha's head, knock the candles over... open flame had such a high probability of starting fires. "Agatha, this isn't really you! You're stronger than this, better than this. You can fight him. You don't have to be Chthon's puppet." Agatha was a good woman. She had taught Wanda nearly everything she knew about magic, had saved her from Immortus, from the instability of her own powers. Surely she had to retain some free will, or she would have stood aside and let Immortus take Wanda.

Agatha shook her head grimly. It still seemed like her, Wanda thought, not like a puppet animated by Chthon's power, but like Agatha.

"He has but to withdraw his power, and I will die again. I didn't live three centuries to perish now."

Agatha was a servant of Chthon. She was the one who had helped Loki craft the curse he had cast on Tony. She was going to call Chthon up to inhabit a human vessel, the way he had once possessed Wanda.

"I can't let you do this," Wanda said. "The real Agatha wouldn't want me to." She drew her arm back, gathered her power, and threw a hex sphere at Agatha. It splashed harmlessly against her skirts, the power fizzling out.

How much of Agatha was truly left? How much of the woman in front of her was simply Chthon's energy poured into an empty shell?

Please, Wanda thought, let it not really be her. She threw the next hex sphere at the candles.

This one connected. The candles spilled over onto the rug, flame whooshing around them like a tiny, soundless explosion, sparks catching and leaping to flame all over the carpet and the drapes. The chances of the heavy, dust-laden velvet catching fire were slim, but not with Wanda's power evening the odds.

Strange would have been able to teleport himself away. Agatha probably could, too, if she had Chthon's power at her beck and call. Wanda didn't have that option.

Agatha was between Wanda and the door. The only way out of the room was though her. Unless... they were on the first floor. Outside the window, it was only a three-foot drop into Agatha's flowerbeds.

She grabbed Agatha's heavy silver tea tray and threw it at the window, mimicking the motions she had seen Cap make so many times. Cap's training had mostly focused on hand-to-hand, but he had shown Clint how to throw his shield once, and she had been there to see it. Clint had been ridiculously smug.

The glass shattered under the impact, the fire roaring higher at the influx of fresh oxygen. Agatha was chanting now, her voice half buried by the roar of the flames. "Shemek Iref Wenek Tjhen Inek It-Ek Chthon Djedeni Emm-Maat..."

Wanda threw herself out the window, landing on her shoulder amid a bed of petunias and rolling back up to one knee, then forced herself to her feet and ran.

ooOOoo

"It does not seem meet to me that Doom should be permitted to walk free from this latest piece of villainy," Thor grumbled, glaring at the newspaper in hands. He had been following the United Nations hearings on whether Doom's attempt to cave half of Lower Manhattan into the sea constituted an act of war, and whether international trade embargos should be placed on Latveria, with poorly concealed ire.

Personally, Tony thought the entire thing was an exercise in futility. If trade embargos were as astoundingly effective against Latveria as they'd been against Cuba over the past fifty years, then maybe some time around 2060, Doom might finally learn his lesson and repent. Tony doubted it, though.

"Prosecuting him for his crimes would cause an international diplomatic incident with Latveria," Steve said. His arm was a warm weight over Tony's shoulders, and after a brief internal debate, Tony had given in and let himself rest his head on Steve's shoulder and enjoy it. What use was being a woman if he couldn't use it as an excuse to cuddle with Steve in semi-public? "Latveria and its allies would see it as a declaration of war," Steve went on. From his tone of voice, he didn't actually find the idea of a UN peacekeeping force invading Latveria an unpleasant one.

He was the only Democrat Tony knew who was all for military intervention. It was the torture of prisoners, the restriction of civil liberties, and the waging of war under false pretenses that he had objected to when he'd temporarily taken off his costume last summer, not the actual fact of the war itself.

"Doom sees everything as a declaration of war," Tony said snidely, "from having his medieval zombie army incinerated to Reed Richard having once beaten him at scrabble in college."

He was sitting with Steve on the living room sofa, Thor lounging in one of the room's massive armchairs across from them. Hank was either in the library or the lab, hiding from Jan, and Jan was in her room with fabric swathes and a design pad, avoiding Hank.

Tony had assumed, once upon a time, that one got to choose the clothing, decorations, and so forth for one's own wedding. Maybe some people did. Those people didn't know Jan Van Dyne.

"He hates you almost as much as he hates Reed." Steve's fingers were rubbing lazy circles on Tony's upper arm, and Tony could feel the heat of his body radiating through their clothes. "What did you do to him, anyway?"

"Posed too much of a challenge. He doesn't like 'worthy opponents' who then refuse his patronizing offers to join him and help conquer the world as his loyal minions." Tony's mind was only partly on the conversation, most of his attention focused on simply enjoying Steve's presence.

He should thank Loki, Tony mused absently. He would never have had this, had this much of _Steve, _without Loki's curse, and it was almost worth trading away his real body for. Spending the rest of his life with Steve, marrying him, _was _worth it.

Wearing the armor, running SI, designing things -- he could still do all of those. He hadn't lost anything important, and he'd gained more than he had ever hoped for a few months ago, when the most he'd dared hope for was that Steve _might _start talking to him again someday.

"He should not be allowed to escape punishment for his crimes simply because he rules a country." Thor tossed the paper aside in disgust; it landed on the end table with the front page facing up, one of the _Bugle's _stock photos of Doom glowering up at the ceiling.

"No," Steve agreed. "He shouldn't."

Steve, Tony decided, was cute when he was being idealistic. When he wasn't being infuriating because his ideals were blinding him to the only practical course of action.

The sound of the front door flying open with a crash -- it had rebounded against the wall, probably; Jarvis hated when people did that -- startled Tony out of his contented musings.

He, Steve, and Thor all leapt to their feet at once, racing for the front hallway.

They nearly collided with Hank, Sam, and Jarvis as they entered the foyer. Hank was wearing a lab coat, and still had a micropipette clutched in one hand. Tony spared a moment to hope that the clear liquid dripping from it wasn't anything poisonous or corrosive. Then he saw the soot-covered figure in the doorway, and forgot about anything else.

"Wanda!" Jan landed lightly on the floor, growing to full size as her feet touched the wooden floorboards, and rushed forward. "What happened?"

"Agatha is chasing me," Wanda blurted out, slapping with both hands at her long, full skirt, which was smoldering faintly in several places. "She tried to drug me. I don't know how far behind me she is."

"Agatha _Harkness _is chasing you?" Tony stared at her. There were scratches along both of her bare arms, and her clothes were covered in dirt as well as scorch marks. There was a crumpled petunia stuck in her hair. _"Why?"._

Wanda blinked at him, her expression indicating that this ought to have been obvious. "Because she's possessed by Chthon." She swayed slightly on her feet, and added. "And because I just burned her house down."

"You what?" Sam stared at her. He been working with Steve for years, Tony reflected, but moments like this made it obvious that he hadn't been on the Avengers for very long. The sheer amount of property damage they often caused took some time get used to -- there were New York City officials and members of SI's board who still weren't used to it.

"She's what?" Steve frowned, and half raised one hand toward his shoulder, reaching for a shield that wasn't there. "How do you know?"

"Because she told me. And because she was chanting a spell from the Darkhold grimoire when I left." She frowned thoughtfully for a second, then added, "And I think she's the one who helped Loki put that spell on Tony."

"But..." Tony shook his head; the thought of Agatha Harkness, Reed Richard's friend, Wanda's mentor, as an ally of Loki just didn't make sense. "Why would she care who ruled Asgard?"

Wanda shook her head. "I don't know. Chthon and Loki are both chaos deities, but I've never heard of a connection between them. Chthon doesn't have allies, just servants."

"And Loki has never willingly served anyone." Thor's face was grim. "I would have words with this Agatha Harkness."

Jan looked up from where she had been busily slapping out the still-smoldering embers in Wanda's skirt. "And she's coming here?"

Wanda nodded. "She wants to summon Chthon and let him possess a human vessel. She drugged my tea so that I wouldn't be able to interfere in her ritual."

"Which means she's probably performing it now." Steve had shifted into a combat stance, his weight on the balls of his feet and his jaw set with familiar determination. "We need to track her down and stop her."

"No." Wanda made a slashing motion with one hand, dismissing the statement. "No we don't. She's coming here. I can feel her coming. She's the source of the chaos power Strange and I have been sensing. I don't know how I didn't realize it before."

"How powerful is she?" Hank had folded his arms across his chest, the glass pipette forgotten in his left hand.

"She's over three hundred years old, she taught me almost everything I know, and she has a magical link to Chthon."

Who, Tony filled in mentally, was almost unimaginably powerful. He hated magic. He really, truly hated it.

Steve nodded sharply. "Right. Everyone suit up. I doubt will have much of a window before she gets here."

Thor, the only one of them already armed and in costume, caressed Mjolnir's handle absently. "Who doth she plan to use as a vessel for Chthon?"

"That's a good question." Steve frowned. "Whoever it is, we can't let her use an innocent like that. It could destroy them."

"I have a better question," Jarvis's voice was not loud, but it cut through the babbling in the room with ease, everyone automatically falling silent to let him talk. "If she means to perform a demonic ritual, why is she coming here to do it?"

No one had an answer to that one, unfortunately. Sam and Jan were already leaving the foyer, Jan pulling Wanda along behind her. Wanda seemed dazed; Tony wondered how much of Agatha's drugged tea she had drunk, or if she was just too shocked by her old teacher's betrayal to focus on anything else.

His briefcase and armor were back in Steve's room, where he'd left them last night. As he turned to go fetch them, Steve right on his heels, he saw Hank still standing by the stairs, indecision obvious in every line of his body.

"Don't just stand there," Steve snapped at him. "Go suit up, Avenger."

Hank shook his head, the motion jerky. "I can't wear that costume again. I won't-"

"Wear your old Goliath costume, then, or go find your Ant-Man helmet. We're going to need your help; it doesn't matter which costume you're wearing."

Hank's face twisted for a moment, his misery obvious. Tony felt a pang of sympathy. Steve didn't know what it was like not to be able to trust yourself, didn't really understand that it wasn't the specific costume that was the problem, but the act of wearing one at all, and the power and responsibility it brought with it.

"Just this once, Hank." Tony turned back, crossing the foyer to where Hank stood frozen by the foot of the staircase, and put one hand on his arm. "If you lose it again, we can deal with that after we've stopped Chthon from manifesting and destroying the world, okay?"

"What if I can't handle it? What if I hurt someone again?"

"You won't," Tony told him. It was lousy as far as reassurances went, because he had no way of knowing that for certain, but Hank had been stable for over a year, longer than Tony had been sober. And even if he had still been a manic, paranoid mess, they would still have needed him in the event that they ended up facing down Chthon.

Hank looked less than convinced, but he nodded, pulling his arm free of Tony's grasp, and started moving.

The seven of them, plus Sam's pet falcon, were waiting outside the mansion when Harkness arrived.

She appeared in a cloud of blood-red smoke that gave off so palpable a sense of _wrongness _that even Tony, who had the magical sensitivity of a rock and liked it that way, could feel it.

He had expected something like that. He hadn't expected her to have half the Masters of Evil along for the ride.

Zemo and Mr. Hyde stood flanking her, Zemo brandishing his stupid glue gun. Atlas loomed behind the three of them, and the Wrecker, crowbar in hand, stood beside him, tapping the enchanted length of metal against his palm as if already anticipating the feel of it slamming into Tony's armor again.

"You don't want to do this, Agatha!" Steve called out, hefting his shield in preparation for throwing it. "Go home before our witch drops a house on you, and no one will have to get hurt."

"And take your flying monkeys with you," Tony added.

"Cheap shots at my appearance don't become you, Iron Man," Hyde sneered.

"You're a smart man, Calvin." Tony spoke quietly, letting the armor's helmet amplify his voice. "Why are you helping her summon the embodiment of chaos? There's no profit in it for you."

"We are not here for gain!" Zemo flung his cloak back over one shoulder and struck a dramatic pose, glue gun aimed squarely at Steve. "I swore I would be avenged on you, Captain, and so I shall! What my team has not accomplished, the powers of chaos will do for us!"

Steve, of course, was incapable of not responding to that kind of supervillain posturing.

"You would sell out this entire dimension to Chthon simply to get petty revenge on me for sending you to prison?" he demanded, the disgust in his voice obvious.

Whatever reply Zemo might have made was cut short by a howl of wind as Agatha Harkness raised her arms skyward and began chanting, Wanda's hex spheres impacting harmlessly against some invisible shield several feet in front of her smoke-wreathed form.

She spoke softly, but the words somehow filled the air just as strongly and clearly as if she'd shouted them. They were in a language Tony had never heard; he assumed it was meant to sound threatening and eldritch, but magical incantations had always just sounded silly to him.

The lines of fire that began arcing through the grass around them as Harkness spoke were considerably more impressive and worrying.

"Stop her!" Steve ordered, pointing one red-gloved finger at Harkness.

Tony fired his jet boots and took off. Wanda's old teacher might be protected against her former student's magic, but that didn't necessarily mean that whatever sorcerous defenses she had would stand up against repulsor blasts.

Jan clearly had the same idea -- she was flying directly for Harkness's face, hands together in front of her, ready to fire off a bio-chemical stinger blast right into the woman's eyes.

Harkness waved one hand, as if swatting a fly, and a tendril of blood-colored smoke lashed out at Jan, knocking her out of the air.

"Jan!" Hank ran forward, still normal-sized, intent on reaching Jan's small, crumpled body.

Tony could see Atlas swing into motion almost before it happened. His massive fist caught a completely unaware Hank directly in the ribcage, sending him sprawling.

Tony forced down the instinct that insisted that he go help his teammates and brought his repulsor gauntlets up, aiming for Harkness. If she succeeding in raising Chthon, none of their lives would be worth a red cent anyway.

The lines of fire were still moving through the grass, slowly carving out what Tony, from his elevated vantage point, could now see was a giant, inverted pentagram.

He reminded himself firmly that however much Harkness might look like a fragile old woman, she was actually a powerful sorceress who was trying to kill them all, and fired twin repulsor blasts at her.

The smoke swallowed them, diffusing the two beams of energy into a broad, glowing cloud, then parted, revealing Harkness still chanting, completely untouched. Her eyes had begun to glow white, the way Wanda's had when Chthon had possessed her.

A second pair of repulsor blasts proved equally ineffective.

Around them, the Mansion's lawn had erupted into chaos. Thor and the Wrecker were whaling away on one another with hammer and crowbar, while Sam was piling blow after barely-effective blow on Mr. Hyde while Redwing dive-bombed his head, avoiding the man's return blows with an easy grace that broadcast as loud as a neon sign that he, like Tony, Clint, and Wanda, had been trained by Steve. Hyde could take more punishment than any human without weapons or superstrength could dish out; Sam was going to need--

"Get out of my way!" Hank yelled at Atlas, shoving himself back to his feet with a wince Tony could see even from twelve feet up in the air.

Atlas laughed. "Make me, little man."

"Little?" Hank started to grow, the size change surprisingly fluid considering that as far as Tony knew, he hadn't done this in over a year. "You're the one who's been running around calling himself Goliath, aren't you?" he snarled. "Let's see how you hold up against the real thing."

Zemo was shouting something at Steve, his faint German accent making him sound like the villain from a bad World war Two movie. Tony tuned him out, refusing to let himself look back to make sure that Steve was holding his own. He would be. He always did.

The burning pentagram below him was almost complete now. Tony increased the thrust from his jet boots and dove toward Harkness; her smoke tentacles had been able to knock Jan aside, but he had a lot more mass than Jan did.

The column of smoke that wrapped itself around his waist was as thick as a tree trunk and just as solid. The abrupt loss of momentum was as jarring as flying into a wall, rattling him around inside his armor in a way that was going to leave bruises later.

Repulsor blasts had no effect on it. Of course.

His armor bent with a groan of tortured metal as the tentacle tightened around him. Harkness clearly meant to crush the armor like a tin can, and Tony with it.

Wanda's hex sphere smashed into the 'trunk' of the tentacle just below Tony, and a wide segment of smoke vanished in a flash of pink light. The coil of smoke around Tony's waist turned insubstantial, only ordinary smoke now, and then he was falling.

He fired the jet boots again, bringing himself to a halt barely a foot above the ground.

Jan was back in the air, darting and weaving through the tendrils of smoke with a quick, irregular flight pattern that reminded Tony of a bat. If she could fight her way through to Harkness, then she could... what? There would still be the woman's magical energy shield to contend with.

They were all screwed, he reflected. They might as well go down fighting, though.

"Stop this, Agatha!" Wanda was screaming. "You know this isn't you! He's controlling you, using you!"

"When Chthon returns to this realm and takes possession of the vessel I have prepared for him, I will be rewarded above all other mortals." Her voice didn't even sound human anymore, resonant with weird harmonics that made the hair on the back of Tony's neck rise.

Surely Strange had to know this was happening? A magical event of this magnitude taking place practically on his doorstep would be impossible for him to miss.

Tony had never expected that he would pray for the Sorcerer Supreme to come and save them, but he seemed to have been doing that a lot lately. Maybe if Strange showed up in time, he'd have more success shutting down Harkness's ritual than he had breaking Loki's spell -- she wasn't a god, after all, just the servant of one.

"What vessel?" Wanda's hands were up in front of her, glowing with pink light, her fingers forming patterns in the air that looked an awful lot like one of Strange's invocations. "I won't let someone else become Chthon's puppet the way I did. No matter what I have to do to you in order to stop it."

"Do you honestly think you _can _stop me? You, a half-trained child?" Harkness shook her head, the mildly disapproving gesture ludicrously incongruous coming from a blazing-eyed avatar of chaos. "Such ingratitude. And after all the lengths I went to to get Loki to prepare me a second vessel of chaos magic in order to spare your life."

To get Loki to...

Tony stared at her in horror, feeling sick in a way that even the discovery that he was pregnant hadn't equaled.

She wanted to let Chthon possess him, use his body as a shell to house a demon. Burn his intellect and soul out of him and leave just an empty doll behind for Chthon to-

Loki materialized in the middle of the lawn with a rush of displaced air.

The fighting actually halted for a moment, as both the Avengers and the Masters of Evil all turned to stare at him.

"You!" Thor bellowed, turning away from the Wrecker and moving towards Loki, mjolnir raised threateningly. "I might have known this was your doing, Loki! Not content with your previous treachery, you join forces with Chthon to destroy Mitgard itself. Odin's wrath over this will make his previous punishments for you seem as nothing."

Loki, for once, ignored him. "Traitorous witch!" he shouted, stabbing one finger angrily at Harkness. "We had a deal! You've been planning to stab me in the back all along, haven't you?"

An answer would have been redundant, and he didn't wait for one.

"You couldn't have known that the spell would affect Iron Man instead of Thor when you planned this," Loki went on, his voice an ugly snarl. "It was supposed to be Thor! Not some worthless mortal. Thor! You were going to _feed my unborn child to Chaos!"_

There was an instant of silence, everyone else presumably as surprised as Tony was. Since when did Loki feel any kind of familial affection for anyone?

"Loathe as I am to admit this, my treacherous kinsman hath a point." Thor sounded aghast, through whether it was at the idea of being used as a vessel for Chthon, or over the fact that he was agreeing with Loki, Tony wasn't sure. "Only a monster would do such a thing to a woman who was with child."

"I think we've already established that she's evil, big guy," Jan said.

"No one double-crosses Loki and gets away with it." Loki brought one hand up, pointing it at Tony. "Let us see you perform your ritual when deprived of your vessel and sacrifice."

He waved his hand, the gesture almost negligent, and the world whited out in an explosion of pain. Tony didn't even have time to scream.

ooOOoo

"The Eye of Agamotto detected no trace of the curse," Strange said, fingering the enormous gemstone he wore around his neck. "You are completely free of the influence of chaos magic."

"Also genetically male again." Hank waved a computer print out at Tony as if it were some kind of prize. "Congratulations; your Y chromosome is back."

Steve probably ought to be saying something, asking questions, or off helping the police with the newly recaptured Masters of Evil, like a responsible team leader ought to. He wasn't contributing anything here; unlike Hank, Strange, Don, and Wanda, he had no scientific or magical knowledge.

He wasn't even sure if his presence was welcome -- Tony wasn't even looking at him. He was still staring down at his own hands, as he had been since he's woken up an hour ago and been pronounced unharmed by Don.

Steve couldn't bring himself to leave, though. He couldn't stop staring at Tony, at his flat, masculine chest, his broad shoulders, the line of hair that started beneath his belly button, just visible over the waistband of his trouser -- Don had made him take his shirt off, so that he could listen to his heartbeat without fabric getting in the way. It had been so long since he'd seen Tony in his original body. He had forgotten things.

The curved line of Tony's spine was the same, male or female; the way his lower back dipped in just a bit above the base of his spine was something that he'd always had. His face was less delicate than Steve remembered, the pointed chin gone.

The mustache and goatee were gone, too. They hadn't re-appeared when Tony had changed back, and without them, he looked almost as unlike himself as he had when female. He looked younger without the facial hair, and his face seemed narrower.

He had fallen out of the sky like a rock when Loki had reversed the spell, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground like so much discarded machinery, and Steve had stopped breathing, utterly convinced for one horrible, stomach-churning moment that he was dead.

Zemo had nearly taken his head off with a ray gun then, while he stood frozen, and Steve had knocked him unconscious with his shield without regard for what damage he might have done in the process.

Agatha Harkness had let out a scream of rage and turned on Loki, who had waved aside the spell she threw at him as if it were nothing before disappearing again. Then she had turned her attentions to Wanda, the only remaining potential vessel for Chthon to inhabit. Wanda had been able to defend herself, but Agatha's smoke tentacles had made it impossible for any of the rest of them to strike a blow against her, and the stalemate had been broken only by the arrival of Strange and Clea, his other student, who had joined forces with Wanda to cut off Agatha's access to Chthon's power and take her down.

She had dissolved into smoke then. Even Strange wasn't sure whether she had died, unable to use Chthon's power to sustain her life and physical form any longer, or simply escaped to another dimension.

Steve hadn't particularly cared. The thing that they had fought hadn't been the real Agatha Harkness -- from the sound of things, the real Agatha had been dead for a long time -- and it's potential demise had been meaningless next to the fact that Tony wasn't moving, hadn't moved since Loki had waved a hand at him and announced that he was depriving Agatha of her sacrifice.

When a still Goliath-sized Hank had pulled off Tony's helmet to reveal strangely unfamiliar masculine features, and announced that Tony was still alive, the wave of relief had been almost dizzying.

"I thought he'd killed you," Don was saying. He was checking Tony's heart for the second time, as if afraid whatever results he'd gotten the first time might change or prove untrue. "I wouldn't put it past him. He goes after people Thor cares about. Any child of the two of them would have spent its entire life as a hostage."

That hadn't occurred to Steve, and the thought that Loki could just as easily have killed Tony in order to seek revenge on Thor was chilling.

"I'm glad he didn't," Tony said. His voice had its old, familiar timber, the husky mezzo-soprano Steve had finally grown used to gone for good. "Hell, I ought to be thanking him. You have no idea how wonderful it is to have my own body back."

"It was always your body," Steve objected. The scars had proved that, and the other details that had still been the same, like the line of his profile and the feel of his hair. His hair would feel the same as a man, wouldn't it? Steve wondered if he would ever get the chance not find out. "It was just... different."

"One chromosome different," Hank confirmed. "Otherwise it was the same. I don't know where the extra mass went; not into a sub-atomic pocket dimension the way mine does, because I checked. Magic makes my head hurt." He rubbed at his forehead with one hand, and for a moment, he and Tony shared equally grumpy expressions.

"I don't want to think about where the mass went." Tony waved a hand dismissively. "The more I think about it, the less sense it makes."

"Magic does not follow the laws of logic," Strange said. "It is a thing of will and belief, the deeper reality that men dismiss as illusion."

"That's why I like my hex powers." Wanda gestured with one hand, as if throwing a hex sphere. "They manipulate probability, not reality itself." She turned back to Tony. "I don't see any sign of the spell, either." She looked away then, shaking her head. "I'm sorry that you got caught up in this. There must have been some scrap of Agatha left in there, since she didn't wish to use me as Chthon's vessels, but I couldn't get through to her."

"It's not your fault," Tony said, just as Steve said,

"You tried your best. You couldn't have known that she was possessed, and with Chthon's power animating her, I don't think one person alone would have been enough to take her out."

"It wouldn't." Strange dismissed the subject with two words and went to peer over Don's shoulder at the results of Hank's blood tests. "Loki was quite thorough. Your blood chemistry is completely normal again, as if you had never been altered in the first place."

"I could have told him that," Hank said. "In fact, I think I did." He sounded more like his old self than Steve had heard him sound in, God, almost two years. Was it being in a lab, surrounded by people he felt comfortable around, or the fact that he had used his size-changing powers again without losing control and without disaster striking?

Tony dropped his gaze to his hands again, shaking his head slowly. "The press is going to have a ball with this. They'd just gotten used to me being female." He didn't sound annoyed over the idea, though. There was something almost like awe in his voice.

He had given up the idea of ever returning to normal, Steve knew. That was what his proposal had been about, on one level. About seizing what he could have as a woman, because there seemed to be no hope of ever becoming a man again. He had rejected Don's suggestion of corrective surgery vehemently, insisting that sexual organs that were in perfect working order were preferable to ones that wouldn't work as well even if they were the wrong kind.

Marriage was out of the question now, of course, at least in New York. And that was assuming Tony still wanted to go through with it at all. He might not. Tony had a chance at a normal life again, now that the curse had been broken, and an open, public relationship with another man would destroy any prayer of a normal life. It would be a serious liability in the business world, too. He would lose even more of the respect he had fought so hard to regain.

"I'm going to need to recalibrate my armor again," Tony added. If anything, he looked pleased at the thought. "Do I have your permission to go, doctors?" He offered the room -- minus Steve -- a small smirk that once again looked at home on his face, though the lack of a moustache to frame it was still jarring.

What would it be like to kiss him now, to feel the rasp of stubble along his jaw, to wrap his arms around someone every bit as tall as he was? He had forgotten how gorgeous Tony was, or at least, forgotten the impact of it.

"Only if you rest," Don said. "You were unconscious for an hour, Tony," he added, before Tony could protest this. "You can play with your armor tomorrow."

Steve crossed the room and held a hand out to Tony. "I'll walk you to your room."

Tony stood on his own, ignoring Steve's outstretched hand. "You just want to spy on me for Don to make sure I actually get some sleep," he accused.

"You need sleep," Steve pointed out, forcing down the hurt caused by Tony's silent rejection. "If you swear on your repulsor gauntlets that you will go straight to bed, I'll let you leave on your own recognizance."

The fact that Tony was willing to swear the silly oath should have made him smile. Instead, he found himself hoping that Tony would refuse to, that he'd use Steve's promise to make him rest on him to get Steve to stay with him.

He tried not to be disappointed when Tony simply promised to follow orders and left.

ooOOoo

Hank shrugged back into his lab coat with an inner sigh of relief, and closed the storage cabinet door firmly on the folded pile of red fabric he'd just shoved inside it.

It had been years since he had worn his old Giant-Man costume. Hank would have been surprised that it still fit, but it was made of unstable molecules and could both stretch and shrink, so it would always fit, no matter what.

Nowadays, he could have simply saturated a costume with Pym particles and let it grow and shrink as he did, but the old red costume had been created before he'd been able to do that, before the Pym particles had soaked into his bone marrow and bloodstream and made his abilities permanent, and before he'd been able to transfer them from his body into inanimate objects.

Theoretically, he ought to be able to transfer them into other people, as well, but no one on the West Coast team had been willing to let him test this on them. Not even Clint, who'd used Pym particles before.

Taking it off and putting it away had been a relief. He knew that it wasn't the costume that had been responsible for his past mistakes, and his loss of control -- it had been his own personality flaws, and his own screwed up brain chemistry -- but wearing one again brought back too many memories. Good memories, which was why they were dangerous.

Being anything other than plain Henry J. Pym was too tempting.

He couldn't let himself want this again. He'd screwed it up to badly before to risk a second attempt.

Pounding Atlas into the ground had been deeply satisfying, though. Payback, Hank supposed, for the time he, the Man-Ape, and Ultron had trashed the West Coast Avengers' headquarters. Hank had been basically useless, then, letting Tony fight the three of them on his own until reinforcements showed up.

He was more useful to the team when he used his powers to their full extant, could do more good, could--

No. It would be a mistake. He was a scientist, first and foremost, and that was what he had to stay.

And there were still tests left for him to perform on Tony's blood samples. It was why he'd stayed behind in the lab after the others had left. This was his job, now, and he intended to do it right. He might not have been able to turn Tony back -- it had taken Loki's magic to do that -- but he could at least make sure that he and Don hadn't missed anything. Make sure that there truly were no side effects from all that time Tony had spent as a woman. Or from his brief and ill-fated pregnancy.

He wasn't going back to LA until he was sure he'd done everything he could to make sure Tony was okay.

Tony's blood had normal levels of testosterone and estrogen, his DNA had returned to normal... his blood chemistry _seemed _right, aside from a low iron count -- not surprising, since women generally had lower iron counts than men -- but there might be some anomaly Hank hadn't noticed yet.

The rest of the team would be finished talking to the press and the police now, and Steve would have gotten them all to gather in the conference room and go over the fight. What they had done well, what they needed to work on, how they had won and why.

Jan would be there. She might even be leading the post-mortem on the fight with Agatha Harkness and the Masters of Evil. She and Steve alternated as chairman of the team these days.

Hank carefully loaded a third sample of blood into the mass spectrometer, then sat back to await the results. Yes, he'd done this twice already, but this time he was searching for a different set of variable than the first two times.

The lab here was much better than the one in LA. He'd forgotten what it was like to work in a state of the art facility, fully outfitted with latest equipment. Tony always had the best toys, and he'd spent years amassing his collection at the Avengers Mansion, as opposed to the handful of months he had spent gathering the lab equipment for the West Coast headquarters.

The gleaming metal workbenches looked sterile and empty without an ant colony's terrarium set up on one of them. He hadn't taken them with him when he left -- no, when he'd been thrown out. He wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to them.

Jan wouldn't have thrown them out or killed them, would she? Maybe she'd let them go outside. It would have been perfectly safe to do so. They had only been _Formica pallidefulva, _common red ants, not _Solenopsis invicta, _or part of the _Ecitoninae _subfamily, or anything else exotic or potentially to the local ecology.

He hadn't brought an ant colony or any other insects in to the West Coast labs. He hadn't wanted to let himself get too at home there. It didn't seem like a good idea to let himself get too at home anywhere.

He was staring intently at the mass spectrometer, trying to will it to produce results, when someone knocked on the door frame. Wanda, probably; he'd heard her heels clicking on the hallway's wooden floorboards.

"Tell Cap I still have more tests to run for Tony," he said, without turning around.

"You can tell him yourself."

"Jan." Hank spun around, his face heating and the bottom dropping out of his stomach.

She was still wearing her Wasp costume. This newest version was another black and yellow number, with black tights and a bright yellow leotard, gloves, and boots. She'd originally started wearing that color combination to match Hank's Yellowjacket costume. He hadn't expected her to keep it.

She looked good in it. Even better than she had in her old red and blue costumes.

She was staring at him, Hank realized. It took effort to make himself met her eyes. The fact that she was even willing to be in the same room with him was more than he had any right to expect.

They ought to have sent someone else to come and fetch him. It wasn't fair to send Jan.

"I was just... there are tests I have to run. So I was, um, running them." He was babbling. He always babbled when he tried to talk to Jan, these days, even over the safe distance of a commlink. Once, he had been more comfortable with her than he'd ever been with anyone.

That had been before, though.

"Don told me," she said. "That you were still working down here." She hesitated, while Hank inwardly agonized over whether or not it would be okay to smile at her, whether that would be friendly or awkward, then said, "I need to talk to you."

_[1] S. invicta = fire ants. Ecitoninae = South American army ants. It's not that Hank didn't __**want**__ to keep either of those species as pets. It's that Jarvis wouldn't let him._

ooOOoo

Hank stared at her for a long moment, his expression frozen and faintly trapped. "What do you want to talk about?" he finally asked, his voice sounding strained.

Now that she was actually down here, face to face with him, the impulse that had led Jan to go looking for Hank seemed silly. What exactly was she here for? Closure? She'd already had that. She'd gotten a divorce. He had apologized and left. And that, as they said, had been that, until Hank had joined Clint's West Coast team and suddenly she was speaking to him over the Avengers' comm link again and hearing Clint mention him when he talked about what his team had been doing.

She had no business being down here, no reason to speak to him. It would just make things harder.

Except... Hank hadn't wanted to get back into costume today, and once upon a time, she had loved him, and she couldn't rest easily until she'd made certain that he was okay.

"You... did a good job today," she said awkwardly. Handing out encouragement like that was part of her job as Avengers' chairperson, but it felt patronizing saying it to Hank. He'd been an Avenger as long as she had, and shouldn't need to be told when he'd done good, but Hank was Hank, and he _always _needed to be told. She'd spent so much energy coddling his fragile self-esteem once, and she'd sworn she would never do it again, but... he _had _done a good job. And Hank tended to only believe things like that if someone else said them. That was, when he wasn't being over-confident.

Hank stared at her, face unreadable. "I- I did?" He shook his head. "I didn't want to do it. I wasn't using the situation as some kind of an excuse to get back into costume again."

Jan nodded. "I know. I heard you talking to Cap and Tony."

"Oh," he said. "I... didn't know you were there."

He probably hadn't wanted her to hear that conversation, she reflected. It couldn't have been easy for him to admit his fears of losing control again to Steve and Tony in the first place, let alone with her watching. "It wasn't the costume that was the problem, Hank," she said, faintly surprised at how gentle her voice sounded. "You know that."

Hank looked away. "I know," he said quietly. "You told me, before, that I needed to get some help, that I was out of control, and... I think I always knew that. I just couldn't _stop_. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't relax, and everything I felt was so overwhelming that I couldn't handle it. Looking back, it's so obvious that the things I did were just so incredibly stupid that I can't believe I did them, but I swear, at the time it all made perfect sense."

"I was angry with you," she admitted. "For a long time." She wasn't sure when that anger had gone away, when thinking of Hank had started to inspire regret instead of outrage. "You hurt me."

Hank winced. He actually seemed to get smaller, though she knew that was only an illusion. Standing in the same room with him, only a few feet away, she would be able to feel it if he actually used the Pym particles in his body to change size.

"I know. I... I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "That's not the only reason I was angry. I was angry at you for hurting yourself, for being so stupid, for throwing your career and our marriage and your membership on the Avengers away." Hank was one of the smartest men she knew, and he'd acted like an idiot, done things she'd _known _he knew better than to even try. She known, all along, that there had been something wrong with him, but it hadn't really penetrated until he'd already been arrested, after Egghead had tricked him into helping the supervillain with his latest scheme. She'd been too hurt, too angry, and the way Hank had acted hadn't made any _sense. _He had come within inches of getting half the team killed with his ridiculous plan to have a robot attack them to that he could stop it and save the day -- and thus prove that they should keep him on the team. So she had blamed him for letting himself fall apart that way, as well as for gambling with their team's lives and hitting her.

It hadn't been fair of her, she knew now. Only the second part had been his fault, not the first. At least he realized that his actions had been dangerous now. At the time, he'd seemed totally incapable of grasping that anything he did might have negative consequences.

"I didn't mean to," Hank said quietly. "I was trying to _keep _those things. By really stupid, dangerous methods. I can't go back and undo them, and I can't ever apologize enough, but I really am sorry. I... you need to believe that."

"I do," Jan said. If she hadn't before, she would have after today, after seeing how desperately uncomfortable merely putting a costume -- any costume -- on again had made him. After seeing him suit up again despite that, because the team needed him. "I know you're trying, Hank. I meant it, when I said you did a good job today." She smiled at him, and it only felt a little forced. "It's always nice seeing someone cut Atlas down to size. Last time we fought him, the Falcon managed to take him down single-handedly, with only his pet bird for help, but I was busy with Zemo, so I don't know how he did it."

"He probably had the bird go for his eyes while he dove for his legs," Hank said, that little crease that meant he was thinking about some problem appearing between his eyebrows. She'd thought it was cute, once upon a time. It was still cute now, honestly. "If he got him in the back of the knees, he could have knocked him off balance easily, given the extra momentum the dive from several feet up would have given him. The original Black Knight did it to me once."

"I remember that." Hank had grown to nearly thirty feet, the tallest he'd ever grown at that point, and the impact of his body with the street had actually made the ground shake. It had also taken out part of a building that the team had then had to pay for, the first in a long line of bills for property damage that the Avengers had received from the city. Hank had been black and blue from his shoulders to his knees, afterwards.

Which brought her back to her real reason for coming down here. "I saw Atlas knock you flying," she said, "before you started using your powers. Are you all right?"

Hank shrugged, the movement only slightly stiff. "Just a few bruises. It will remind me that being a superhero isn't as glamorous as it's rumored to be."

It wasn't really that funny, but Jan found herself laughing anyway. "Since when has being a superhero ever been glamorous?"

"You thought it was going to be." There had been a point in time when that statement, coming from Hank, would have been a dig at Jan for being vain, or naХve. Now, it just sounded teasing, if somewhat awkwardly so.

"I was young and innocent then. I didn't realize how hard it was to get costumes to drape properly and still stand up to abuse. Looking glamorous takes both planning and hard work."

They were actually talking, she realized, with a strange little jolt. Not yelling at each other, not trading blame or apologies. Actually talking, the way they had used to. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed it.

"You make it look easy," Hank said. Then he flushed. "Sorry. I know it's over between us, I do. I just... you're the most beautiful woman I've ever known, and I can't not notice it."

Hank, Jan knew from long experience, frequently didn't notice what women were wearing, and sometimes didn't even notice their hair color. But he still noticed her, even after their relationship's spectacularly messy ending.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

But... Hank was not only trying to rebuild his life; he seemed to actually be doing it, something she had thought impossible little over a year ago. And today... she still knew how to fight on a team with him, how to automatically dodge around where Hank's blows were going to be to get up close into a villain's face. It was how they had taken down Atlas, Jan providing the last-second distraction while Hank administered the knock-out punch.

"That part of my life is over, Hank," she said firmly. "But... the next time you guys need help out on the West Coast, give me a call. You may not be my husband anymore, but you're still my teammate."

Hank's eyes went wide. "Really? You know I don't-" he shook his head, hard. "I spend most of my time in the lab. Not exactly the sort of thing that needs re-enforcements."

"You never know when you might accidentally end up being shrunk and trapped in an ants' nest."

"N-no," Hank agreed, staring at her as if she were something miraculous. It would have been more troubling if she hadn't known that he looked at social insects and laboratory test results in the same way. "All kinds of things happen in labs."

Jan had had to steel herself in order to come down to Hank's lab. Leaving it again was much easier, but not, for the first time in months, because it meant that she was getting away from him. She'd had an entire conversation with Hank, and walked away neighed angry, disappointed nor worried. Maybe Tony being changed back to normal hadn't been the only piece of magic to happen today.

ooOOoo

The center of gravity for the armor was off again, not to mention the internal dimension. They'd needed to be scaled down slightly to accommodate the loss of five inches in height. Now, all the modifications Tony had made needed to be undone.

He had the armor completely disassembled, the parts scattered across two work benches and a significant portion of the floor; the lab and work area tucked behind his office at the main Stark Industries plant was smaller than the one in the Avengers Mansion. Reversing the changes he'd made while female didn't actual require him to take apart the repulsor gauntlets and the jet boots, but there were a few improvements to both that he wanted to test out. As long as he was working on the armor anyway, he might as well do a complete overhaul.

He'd almost started to feel comfortable in a female body, but having his own back was... he'd stopped expecting to ever be normal again, to be able to move in a fight without reminding himself that his reach was shorter, to look Steve and Sam and Hank in the eye instead of looking up at them. He'd missed that last the most, even more than the additional strength and mass that gave him better leverage when he was manhandling pieces of machinery into place.

It didn't feel real, yet. He still kept expecting to look in the mirror and see the female version of himself.

Once he had the armor fixed, things would be back to normal, and he would stop expecting something to suddenly resurrect Loki's curse and change him back again.

The media uproar had been slightly smaller than he'd expected; apparently Tony Stark changing back into a man was less newsworthy and fascinating as Tony Stark being turned into a woman. The board had been thrilled, though DeFalco had seemed somewhat disappointed during his meeting with Tony this morning when he'd walked into Tony's office to find a man sitting behind the desk instead of a reasonably attractive woman. Once Tony had begun showing him the results from the final stages of implementation at the geothermal energy plant, however, the Department of Energy representative had perked back up again. And when Tony had handed him the balance sheet of cost expenditures versus energy output, he'd positively beamed.

It was good to know that he hadn't lost his touch.

Tony surveyed the array of scattered armor components, already seeing in his head the way they would fit together, how the rerouted power input for the gauntlets would work. It had taken three hours to get the suit apart like this, and would take at least four more to put it back together, but he had time, or rather, after nearly forty-eight hours of being male again, he'd finally been able to stand it no longer and made time. He'd turned off his cell phone and Avengers communicator, told Pepper not to let anyone or anything in, and locked the door.

He felt naked when his armor wasn't working properly. He wouldn't have waited this long to get to work on it if he'd had a choice.

First there had been all the tests Hank, Don, and Strange had wanted to do, and then he had needed to speak to the board, and then the press, and then he'd had to look over the legal paperwork for one of the patent cases he was still fighting against SHIELD, and the lawsuit against the investor who had pulled his financial support from a project when Tony had been turned into a woman, which was thankfully being settled out of court. He could just imagine the judge's face otherwise, when Tony walked in, very obviously male, and gave his deposition.

"But you are not a woman now, Mr. Stark," he or she would say, and Tony would, what? Shrug, and say, "I got better?" He could imagine how well that would have gone over.

And the final phase of testing on the geothermal energy project had just been completed yesterday, and...

What with one thing and another, he hadn't even made it back to the Mansion. He'd slept on a cot in his workroom last night, the way he'd used to whenever he didn't have a date.

Pepper had had a few things to say about that.

"I am not avoiding Steve," Tony announced aloud to the repulsor coil in his hand. "I'm just busy."

He was probably doing Steve a favor by staying here, intentional or not. He'd stopped sleeping in his own room at the mansion several weeks ago, after he'd proposed to Steve. Their relationship had been common knowledge by then, and sneaking back into his own room at night had seemed silly.

Steve would have insisted on Tony still sleeping in his bed, on not changing anything they did just because circumstances had changed. He would probably have insisted on going ahead with the wedding, as well, if there had been a snowball's chance in hell that the state would have let them.

And Tony wouldn't have been able to say no. He suspected it was beyond mortal power to refuse Steve when he looked you in the eye and asked you to go to bed with him (he said it that way, too, "Go to bed with me," because he was adorably old fashioned and incapable actually saying things like, "Tony, I want you to let me fuck you into the mattress.").

And taking Steve up on the offer, pretending nothing had changed, would have been fair to Steve. Steve loved him, he knew, but he hadn't been interested in starting a relationship until Tony had been female. He hadn't been attracted to Tony in a male body -- it had been Tony's temporary, female body that Steve had wanted, that Steve had thought was beautiful, desirable.

All the love in the world couldn't make you enjoy sex that went against your natural orientation, could it?

It had always been the person, for him, whenever it had been serious, not the body they came in. Whitney's scarred face hadn't made a difference to him, and Bethany's strength and Indres' seductive smiles would have been just as irresistible if they had been men. Rhodey's piloting skills and ability to hold his own against Tony in a race or an argument and Steve's passion and confidence and overwhelming physical presence would have been just as sexy in a woman.

It didn't work that way for most people, though. It was important for most people that their partner have the right equipment, whether it be the male or the female kind.

And Tony didn't, not any longer.

If someone had asked him, three days ago, if he would allow Strange and Wanda to change him back if the price for it was losing Steve, he would have told them no.

He had the torso of the armor and one repulsor gauntlet back together when there was a knock on the door.

Tony ignored it, not looking up. The gauntlet was held together by a myriad of tiny screws, among other things, and if any one of them was loose, the structural integrity was compromised.

The more recent versions of the armor were more powerful and offered more protection, but there were times when he missed the flexible metal he'd used in the earlier designs. The arms and legs of the armor had been cast in single pieces then, with no need for joints, and it had simplified the construction considerably. It had also made the suit lighter, which meant that it had _required _less power to operate.

He was debating the merits of re-introducing fleximetal into the armor's knee and elbow joints when the knocking was repeated.

"Pepper, what did I tell you?" he called out.

"Not to let me in." Steve's voice.

Damnit. He'd been hoping to postpone this conversation a little while longer.

Tony input the code to unseal the door and immediately found himself face to face with Steve. At least he was face to face with him, and not nose-to-chest anymore. This was going to be hard enough without Steve having that psychological advantage.

"I suspected that you were avoiding me, but I didn't think you'd actually tell Pepper not to let me in." Steve sounded slightly hurt.

"I told her not to let _anyone _in," Tony corrected, wincing inwardly. He hadn't thought about how it would sound to Steve if he showed up and found himself barred from entering Tony's workroom. "I wanted to finish this without interruptions."

"Pepper says you slept here last night."

"I was busy. It was so late by the time I finished everything that it was easier just to stay here. The geothermal plant's official opening is next week," he added.

"You are coming home tonight, though?" Steve sounded... hopeful? Plaintive?

"I need to finish this first," he evaded.

Steve folded his arms and leaned against the wall, to all appearances settling in to stay. "I'll wait."

"It could take a long time," Tony warned.

"I don't mind."

He was being a coward, Tony decided. He needed to deal with this now -- the longer he dragged it out, the more painful it would be for both of them.

He had been prepared for this once. He'd let himself take his relationship with Steve for granted once he'd given up hope of being changed back.

"Steve, about..." Tony took a deep breath, bracing himself inwardly. "About the marriage. I don't consider any promises made binding anymore, everything's changed."

"What do you mean, not binding?" Steve demanded, and Tony had to look away from the expression on his face. He was doing this for Steve's own good, he reminded himself, giving him a graceful out now, without the humiliation of trying to make it work and failing. "Nothing's changed!"

"You agreed to marry me when we thought there was no chance of my changing back anymore. When we both assumed that I was stuck as a woman."

Steve nodded slowly, misery in his eyes. "And now that you're back to normal, you don't-"

"I'll understand if you can't be together with me anymore," Tony blurted out. "Now that I'm a man again. I'm not going to force you to try and have sex with me like this, not if you don't-- I know you love me, but if you're not comfortable with--"

"Wait," Steve interrupted, "are you breaking things off with me, or are you afraid I want to break things off with you because you think I'm afraid to out myself?"

"I know you don't care what other people think. You fell in love with a woman, not a man. You didn't sign up for--"

"I fell in love with you," Steve snapped. "I don't care what gender you are. If I didn't care that you'd been changed into a woman, why would it stop me that you'd been changed back?"

"Because you're not attracted to men?"

"What do you mean, I'm not attracted to men? I've been sleeping with you for months!"

"While I was a woman!"

"Do you think I cared about that? I admit, it never occurred to me that I'd have a chance with you before, but I didn't know you liked men until I heard about you and Hank, or that you'd ever thought of me that way, until you told me after that party." He stepped forward and took Tony by the arms, heedless of the screwdriver Tony was still holding. "Do you want me to prove it to you? Fine. I'll prove it to you."

He brought his mouth down on Tony's hard, his tongue demanding entry, his fingers digging into Tony's arms.

Tony was too surprised to push him away; he fell into the kiss just as he always had.

It felt no different. Not forced or hesitant. Steve wasn't holding anything back, was kissing Tony with as much enthusiasm as he ever had. He released Tony's arms, one hand suddenly flat against Tony's back and the other sliding into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling Tony's body against his. "You didn't come home last night," he said into the side of Tony's throat, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against the pulse point under Tony's jaw. "I've wanted to get my hands on you like this for two days now." The words vibrated across his skin, and Tony could feel the hard length of Steve through both their clothing, the evidence of Steve's arousal sending all of Tony's good intentions out the window. Screw being noble, he decided, letting the screwdriver clatter to the floor and sliding his hands down to Steve's impossible perfect ass, grinding his own erection into Steve's. No one should be expected to be noble under these circumstances.

"The floor is covered with my armor," Tony gasped, breaking the next kiss for a moment in order to say it. "We can't do this here." Actually, he realized, the door had a lock that only he could open and he'd told Pepper not to let anyone else into his office. She wouldn't have let Steve in if she hadn't decided that it would be good for Tony to talk to him.

Pepper was a very smart woman, and he'd have to thank her later.

"There's a cot over in the corner," he said. "It's kind of small, but-"

Steve pulled away from him, disentangling himself from Tony's arms and taking a step back. "This is the first time I'll be sleeping with you in this body," he said, shaking his head. "Your own body. Not that the other one wasn't yours, but-- This time, we're going to do things right. The classy way that involves an actual bed instead of gym mats or your laboratory floor."

The armor, Tony decided, could wait. "Sorry, Shellhead," he murmured to the half-completed pile of parts on the workbench and floor. "I'm afraid you come in second this time."

"I don't talk to my shield, you know."

"No," Tony said, "but you sleep with it."

"Keeping it next to my bed is not sleeping with it." He reached out and grabbed Tony by the wrist, pulling him toward the door that led back out into his office. "Come on," he said. "And don't you dare offer to let me back out of this one more time. We are getting married in three weeks come hell or high water. If Chthon couldn't stop us, then backwards and intolerant state laws sure as hell won't. We can go to Massachusetts."

Tony laughed, and let Steve drag him out of the room.

_**The End**_


End file.
